Umami ≠ Deliciousness
The current mainstream of Japanese tea focuses on high umami content. The main component of umami is an amino acid called theanine, but umami does not mean delicious.
Umami refers to a taste represented by glutamic acid, similar to that found in broth. However, due to the Japanese word "umami," it is often misunderstood that the more umami a tea has, the more delicious it is — because in Japanese, "umami" also carries the meaning of "delicious."
To increase the amino acid content in tea leaves, nitrogen fertilizer must be applied. In tea gardens where nitrogen fertilizer is used, the tea trees grow vigorously, but the amount of polyphenols and minerals, including catechins, is reduced. Tea with a high theanine content also has a weaker depth of flavor and aftertaste, resulting in a lighter-tasting tea overall.
The Rich Flavor of Our Japanese Tea
We select teas with a focus on rich flavor, choosing teas rich in catechins and minerals rather than theanine. Teas rich in minerals are produced through natural cultivation without fertilizer, or with only limited fertilizer.
Please enjoy the sweet aftertaste that lingers in your throat when you drink our tea.
We remove only foreign matter and preserve the fresh aroma by immediately packing the tea in an oxygen-free environment.
Natural Cultivation on Mount Jubu
Uji Sencha Jubuzan is made from tea cultivated naturally — without pesticides or fertilizers — on Mount Jubu, located between Wazuka Town and Ujitawara Town in Kyoto.
This tea is made from Zairai-Shu, which are grown from seeds. Because they are propagated from seeds, they undergo complex hybridization, resulting in a blend of teas with diverse characteristics.
Product Details
The raw material is tea naturally cultivated on Mount Jubu, located between Wazuka Town and Ujitawara Town in Kyoto.
This tea is grown without fertilizers or pesticides, and no deep pruning is performed to accelerate growth.
In a sense, it is grown like wild trees in the countryside — slowly, over time.
As a result, the leaves are yellow due to nitrogen deficiency and very rich in minerals. Remarkably, even chewing last year's tough leaves reveals a sweet taste with no unpleasant bitterness.
To Achieve Rich Flavor and Sweet Aftertaste, We Commit to Natural Cultivation Without Fertilizers
Mount Jubu is a 682-meter-high mountain located between Ujitawara Town and Wazuka Town.
This area used to be the bottom of Lake Biwa in ancient times, so the surrounding terrain contains rich clayey red soil. In addition to the ideal environment of Mount Jubu, we selected naturally cultivated tea leaves as raw materials for this tea.
Tea flooded with fertilizers continues to grow excessively, accumulating large amounts of amino acids, but it is very low in polyphenols and minerals — the key elements of flavor and quality — resulting in bland tea.
Generally, Japanese tea with an excess of amino acids has a very light taste, so it is often roasted heavily to enhance its flavor and give the tea character. Tea rich in amino acids, when heated, undergoes the Maillard reaction, forming a sweet flavor similar to pancakes. This often leads to the misconception that a good flavor equals good tea. However, truly good tea impresses you through its overall sensory experience.
We source naturally cultivated tea grown without fertilizers or pesticides, which already exudes a very rich flavor. For this reason, our tea requires no roasting at all.
Fresh Aroma of Newly Made "Aracha"
Tea that has just been processed after plucking is called "Aracha." Usually, from the state of Aracha, foreign matter and powder are removed, stems are taken out, and the tea is then roasted to become the final finished product.
If the raw material itself is of high quality, roasting is unnecessary. High-quality tea — with its rich aftertaste and natural character — loses its distinctive qualities the more it is roasted.
Conversely, tea grown with excessive nitrogen fertilizer has very little taste and sweetness due to its lack of polyphenols and minerals.
For such tea, roasting is often used to bring out a toasty flavor; otherwise, it would have no character at all.
Naturally cultivated tea, on the other hand, is delicious even in its raw Aracha state because the raw material itself is of good quality.
Farmers generally prefer Aracha. They understand its deliciousness and often distinguish between finished tea for commercial sale and Aracha kept for their own family use.
Preserving the Tea's Original Aroma Without Intentionally Removing Stems
In Japanese tea, stems are yellow and stand out noticeably against the dark green leaves.
In modern tea-making, stems are always removed to create uniformly green tea. This has become standard practice in the Japanese tea industry, which places a strong emphasis on appearance.
However, we intentionally do not remove the stems.
Through numerous experiments, we came to appreciate the importance of stems. Stems are rich in minerals and contribute a very sweet flavor.
Those who have tasted stem tea like Karigane know that stem tea is very sweet!
To test the effect of stems, we compared tea with stems removed by hand (using tweezers) against tea with stems left intact.
The result was striking — there was a clear difference in flavor. Everyone who tasted both preferred the tea with stems.
Tea with stems removed had a sharper flavor, and the sweet, mellow, floral scent was dramatically weakened.
In Japan, it has long been considered a good omen if a tea stem stands upright in the cup when brewed, a phenomenon known as "chabashira ga tatsu" — "the tea pillar stands." However, modern tea no longer contains stems capable of standing.
People in the past appreciated the sweetness of stems and drank tea with them as a matter of course. Today, we prioritize appearance, sacrificing aroma and flavor in the process.
A Rare Tea Grown at an Altitude of 600m in Uji
The tea garden is located at a high altitude where snow falls in winter. Since this area used to be the bottom of Lake Biwa, high-altitude positions have accumulated high-quality red soil rich in iron, producing tea with a deep throat feel.
Conversely, the base of the mountain has land formed by river erosion, containing more sand and producing lighter tea.
At high altitudes, tea cells actively photosynthesize under stronger sunlight during the day, but the temperature drops significantly at night, slowing growth and allowing the leaves to accumulate abundant polyphenols and minerals instead.
Highland vegetables are rich and delicious. Similarly, tea grown at high altitudes has a rich taste and a deep throat feel.
The Pitfalls of Organic Cultivation
There is a widespread belief that organic cultivation is healthy and delicious.
While organic cultivation is safe in terms of pesticides, it does not necessarily mean the tea is delicious or healthy.
To produce truly delicious vegetables, fruits, and tea, it is important to allow plants to grow slowly over time, developing leaves with high cell density that are rich in polyphenols and minerals — resulting in a deep, rich sweetness.
I have tasted many organic teas, but many were indistinguishable from ordinary tea in terms of quality.
This is largely related to the type of fertilizer used and how the tea is grown. Even with organic fertilizers, if nitrogen-rich inputs like compost are used, the effect on the plants is essentially the same as applying chemical fertilizers like nitrates.
When nitrogen is provided, plants grow vigorously because nitrogen activates the growth switch.
Vigorous growth simply means larger cell size. Rapidly growing tea leaves do not produce polyphenols, resulting in tea with low mineral content.
The leaves are occupied with synthesizing the cell walls needed for their growth, leaving no capacity to synthesize polyphenols.
Tea leaves made of large cells are also brittle and prone to producing fine powder.
My family grows apples, and when nitrogen fertilizer is applied, the leaves turn deep green, the foliage grows large, and the apples become bigger.
However, the taste tells the whole story. The apples lack depth, are watery, and simply not delicious. I believe that regardless of whether cultivation is organic or conventional, what matters is growing tea close to its natural, wild state — slowly, over time.
Tea grown slowly under harsh conditions reflects its struggle in its quality.
Tea plants growing beside animal manure. The leaves are so large and dark green that they are barely recognizable as tea plants. Tea made from such trees has a light taste and almost no throat feel.
Deep Pruning
The more deeply tea plants are pruned, the more vigorously they sprout the following year.
"Vigorous sprouting" means the cells making up the new leaves grow larger, resulting in tea with low mineral content.
This applies not only to Japanese tea — pruned tea is generally suited to mass production, while high-quality tea is grown slowly with minimal pruning.
These practices are common in major tea-producing regions like Shizuoka and Kagoshima.
Nitrogen is applied and deep pruning is performed to accelerate growth, enlarge the leaves, and increase yields.
High quality typically means low yield and rarity. It is unrealistic to expect both high quality and high production to coexist.
As with highland vegetables, flavorful apples, and premium melons — when grown for taste, plants develop slowly over time. The result is lower yield but higher cell density, producing richer flavors.
This principle applies not only to vegetables but also to fish: the difference between farmed fish raised quickly and wild fish grown slowly over time tells the same story.
Pruned tea plants produce vigorous young branches and large, deep green leaves.
Tea Made from Rare Zairai Varieties
Uji Sencha Jubuzan is made from a tea called Zairai Tea.
Zairai Tea is often misunderstood to mean indigenous or original species that have existed in Japan for a long time, but it actually refers to tea grown from seed.
Because Zairai Tea is grown from seed, it develops strong roots that grow straight and deep into the ground, similar to burdock root. In contrast, cultivar teas have shallow, finely branched roots that make it difficult to absorb minerals but easier to take up surface-applied fertilizers.
As a result, Zairai Tea has a higher ability to absorb minerals compared to common cultivars, producing tea with rich flavor and aroma — where "richness" refers not to bitterness or astringency, but to depth and persistence of aftertaste.
Because Zairai Tea is grown from seed, it undergoes complex hybridization, so diverse leaf shapes, sizes, colors, aromas, and flavors can be found within the same tea garden.
In China, many high-quality teas are made from Zairai Tea, generally referred to as "quntizhong." Famous Longjing tea, for example, uses mixed varieties when it comes to premium-quality production.
