Origin: Tsuchiyama Tea, Shiga, Japan
Manufacturer: Seiseido
Features: Superior quality shaded Kabusecha
Preparation method: use 7-8 grams of product and minimally mineralized water, with fixed residue not exceeding 50 mg/l, at 70 °C and a preheated teapot of small volume (150-250 ml).
Prepare1-minute infusions, three of which will give you richly flavored infusions, while subsequent ones will be milder and sweeter. As you go through the infusions use increasingly hot water until you reach a temperature of 90-95°C. In summer we recommend its consumption with iced water!
After opening, store tightly closed in the refrigerator at a temperature of 5°C.
If you do not have the right tools to brew your Sencha, you can choose from our teapots and cups and take a look at the sets available.

Asamiya Kabusecha Okumidori

Inside the Asamiya/Omi tea growing area in Shiga Prefecture, Asamiya Kabusecha Okumidori tea comes from the Tsuchiyama area. To be exact, from the estate of Yoshinori Maeno.

The Asamiya (Omi) area can be divided into three small tea-growing areas:

• Asamiya is quite close to Uji. Dividing the two areas is a mountain.
• The southern part of Shiga Tsuchiyama. Area, this one, purely mountainous.
• Mandokoro and some small neighboring villages that are characterized, precisely, by tea cultivation in mountainous areas.

In 2022, the ever-cheerful producer Yoshinori Maeno won the Ministry of Agriculture's prestigious first prize, related to teas produced in Shiga Prefecture, with this very tea. His younger brother won the first two prizes of the great Kansai Tea Competition. Here is a summary of the competition , and below you can find what the results were.

Features

This tea is the classic mountain tea from the Asamiya area. Blue tones, with large-cut leaves and strictly hand-picked. The Yabukita-Okumidori combination gives a wonderful soft and feminine character that melts in the mouth, which turns out to be very interesting and peculiar, as Yabukita is usually considered a tea with a rich but strong flavor, while Okumidori is usually presented with a soft but masculine character. The blend between these two varieties together with the terroir of production and the Mastery of the producer give this tea an almost perfect roundness. We can say that this is the best Kabusecha we have ever drunk. We have not found a Kabusecha of this level even among the excellent Kabusecha from Kagoshima and Yame.

History

Among the teas of Omi, the production of Tsuchiyama tea began in 1356, when Juno, a monk from Jomyoji Temple, brought tea seeds from Daitokuji Temple in Kyoto and began growing them.

The production of tea within Zen temples came to the public in the EDO period. This is also a Zen symbol, thanks to the Eiunji temple monk, Tenrei, who widely popularized tea cultivation. At that time, the tea grown in this area was called Akebono tea, considered the antecedent of today's Tsuchiyama tea. Tsuchiyama tea is known for its production of quality Kabusecha, a category of tea that covers about 15 percent of total production. The most commonly used shading method is direct shading, but the camouflage net technique is also used. Teas from that growing area have won the Grand Prize of the Ministry of Agriculture in the Kabusecha category several times. The name of Tsuchiyama tea is derived from the song Umakouta:

"Reflection hills, Suzuka (Mountain) cloudy and it's just raining in Tsuchiyama." The landscape was also immortalized by Hiroshige in his famous woodcuts.

Preparation

Use 7-8 grams of the product and minimally mineralized water, with a fixed residue of no more than 50 mg/l, at 70 °C and a preheated teapot of small volume (150-250 ml).

Prepare 1-minute infusions, three of which will give you richly flavored infusions, while the next few will be milder and sweeter. As the infusions go on, use warmer and warmer water until you reach a temperature of 90-95°C.

In the summer, we recommend its consumption with ice water!

After opening and use, keep tightly closed in the refrigerator at 5°C.