Sencha Okumidori Yasue 50g

• Style: Asamushi
• Cultivar: Okumidori
• Region: Higashi-Shirakawa, Gifu
• Harvest: 05/2025
• Shiage – final refining: 08/2025

Single-cultivar senchas became fashionable a few years ago, and there are many to try in the Rishe Tea range. Okumidori, however, appeared with us for just one year and then disappeared – there was nothing to do but wait. An autumn expedition finally brought unexpected success: at Mr Yasue’s in the village of Higashi-Shirakawa I came across an Okumidori sencha that meets my requirements for the way it is grown and won me over straight away.

Okumidori (おくみどり) was bred at the Shizuoka tea research station by crossing Yabukita with a local zairai tea plant and registered in 1974. It is a late-budding cultivar with deep green leaves and a deep, gentle taste with pronounced umami.

The Tokiwaen plantation lies in the picturesque village of Higashi-Shirakawa in Gifu Prefecture, surrounded by steep slopes and deep forests – in the hills above the river whose crystal-clear water gave the village its name (“Eastern White River”).

Like his father before him, Mr Yasue farms in harmony with the surrounding nature, without pesticides or synthetic fertilizers. He grows, picks and processes the tea himself – first into aracha and then through the final refining (shiage) – in the smallest tea factory I have ever seen. He is the local Shinto priest, a beekeeper, a tea farmer and a tea maker all in one person.