Shizuoka Kabusecha Green Tea

Shizuoka is the prefecture most people think of as Japan's tea country. This lightly shaded kabusecha is fresh and sweet, with sweet grass, umami and a clean, savory finish. Brewed in a kyusu at 70°C.

Origin & Story

For generations the name Shizuoka has meant Japanese tea. The prefecture, on the Pacific coast between Tokyo and Nagoya, has produced an estimated 40 percent of the country's tea, and it topped the national records from 1967 until 2019, when Kagoshima passed it in the value of the tea produced. The two together still make roughly 70 percent of Japan's dried unrefined tea.

Sencha, the everyday green tea that makes up most of what Japan produces, is the backbone of Shizuoka's tea, and shaded teas such as kabusecha and gyokuro are a smaller part of the whole. Not far from here, in Okabe, the Asahina valley is one of Japan's three best gyokuro districts, so shaded tea is well understood in the prefecture.

A kabusecha is covered for just one to two weeks before harvest, which is enough to add sweetness and umami and soften the bitterness without changing the leaf as much as gyokuro's three weeks of shade do. It is a good way to taste what a little shade can do.

In the cup this one is fresh and sweet: sweet grass and umami, with a clean, savory finish. Start with water at 70°C and about 3 g of leaf in a 240 ml kyusu, pour out after a minute and a half, and adjust the next infusion to your taste.

Reading the Flavor Profile

These values are comparative editorial positions within our own catalog, calibrated so entries can be ranked against each other. They are not laboratory measurements.