From one village to one bowl
Our matcha comes from Wazuka, a tea village in the hills south of Kyoto. We buy tencha, the dried leaf, and mill it ourselves on granite in the tea room, a little every morning.
Wazuka, behind Uji
Wazuka grows close to half of the tea that is sold as Uji tea. The fields are steep, the mornings misty, and the bushes rest under black cloth for about three weeks before the first harvest in May.
We work with one family farm and buy only from the first flush. When this year’s tea is gone, we wait for the next one.
Milled on granite, forty grams an hour
A stone mill turns slowly so the leaf never gets warm. It makes about forty grams of matcha an hour, enough for twenty bowls. Fresh matcha smells sweet and green, and it loses that within weeks. So we mill every morning.
Leaf
First flush tencha
Cultivars
Okumidori, Saemidori
Shade
About three weeks
Milled
Every morning, in the tea room
What ceremonial means here
Ceremonial is not a protected word. Anyone can print it on a tin.
When we use it, we mean first harvest leaf, shaded, destemmed, stone-milled and good enough to drink with water alone. That is the only matcha we whisk as usucha and koicha. For lattes we use the same tea, because milk should not hide anything.
Three ways we whisk it
2 g · 70 ml · 80 °C
Usucha
Thin tea. Bright, light and the best place to start.
4 g · 30 ml · 80 °C
Koicha
Thick tea, kneaded rather than whisked. Dense and sweet.
3 g · 60 ml · 160 ml milk
Latte
Usucha poured over steamed milk, oat if you like.
Taste the difference
Come by for a bowl, or learn to whisk it yourself in one of our small workshops.