JAPAN
Tradition tells us that the first tea leaves to be harvested and brewed in Japan came from the famous tea fields of Hiyoshi-chaen, Shiga Prefecture. Still managed today by the Hiyoshi Taisha shrine, the descendants of the plants grown from monk Saicho’s original imported seeds are thought to grow.
In a newer venture, specialist tea producer Akira Tatsuoka, who is now 62, built up and earned the trust of the Hiyoshi Taisha shrine, who then gifted him with cuttings of the potentially descended plants. He now grows them in Koka’s Tsuchiyamacho district in Shiga Prefecture. After a long project growing a small number of cuttings for ten years — twice the amount of time that is needed for Japan’s more typical tea plants — Tatsuoka has produced just 130kg of the fabled tea.
He has named this first harvest his ichibancha, or first tea, which is typically made up of Japanese tea leaves of the first harvest for the year. Tatsuoka is honored to be producing this historic tea in a prefecture renowned for tea’s introduction into Japan, and hopes to spread his unique offering throughout the country, as his ability to produce more of the tea increases.