Kagoshima Organic Kabuse Sencha

Kagoshima Organic Kabuse Sencha is a very special tea. After the first sip we already knew: “We want this tea!”. The tea is made of first flush tea leaves (shincha) of Saemidori tea bushes. Saemidori is an exceptional, very promising tea cultivar which, due to its sensitivity to frost, can only be cultivated south of Kyoto.

tea with extraordinary flavors

In Kagoshima, there is seldom frost, but the numerous volcanoes on Kyushu threatens the tea. Currently is Sakurajima, the local vulkano and the landmark of Kagoshima very active. The volcanic ash ensures that the soil is very rich in nutrients and thus the tea can produce extraordinary flavors. However, should the ashes pour down shortly before the harvest, the tea leaves must be washed after the harvest.

sweet aroma

But, such a tea would not bring the desired quality. Fortunately, our tea maker was spared this year by the ash and was able to deliver a top product again. Also, a particularly hard and long winter, followed by a rapid rise in temperature in spring helped to improve the quality this year even more. The teas tastes this year due to this special weather condition even sweeter.

Saemmidori tea

By the way, this year we were able to visit the Yamaguchi family and their production facility on the farm. Of course, we have also took a look at the tea fields with “our” Saemidori tea plants and let us extensively enlighten about the local characteristics of the weather, soil etc. We were particularly impressed by the new Jikagise nets. They block even more sunlight and, thanks to the reflective surface, they get less hot compared to than the old style nets.

Harvest season: Spring
Aroma: Very sweet and savoury
Terroir: Kagoshima prefecture, Japan
Varietal: Saemidori
Steaming: Chumushi
Preparation: In this blog post you will find a description of how to brew Kagoshima Organic Kabuse Sencha in an optimal way.