Sakura-No Sencha and other exclusive green tea rarities

SAKURA-NO SENCHA AND OTHER EXCLUSIVE GREEN TEA RARITIES BY THE MATSUMOTO FAMILY

The Matsumoto family, who runs the Sakura-No En tea garden, is not only convinced that it should be obvious to cultivate tea without pesticides. Moreover, they converted a part of their tea garden to a Japanese concept of cultivation which uses no fertilizers at all. Two of the teas we exclusively imported for the first time in 2012 in small quantities are from this natural cultivation part of the tea garden: Sakura-No Mukashicha and Sakura-No Kamacha.

Both teas come from seed-grown Zairai bushes. Their roots reach much deeper into the soil than plants grown from cuttings, which are commonly used. The plants which Sakura-No En harvests today for these two teas (Mukashicha and Kamacha) are already 70 years old and can become even 300 years old. Plants grown from cuttings normally reach an age of 30 to 40 years. The seed-grown plants and the concept of non-fertilizing have a remarkable influence on the taste of the teas. While this kind of cultivation is elsewhere considered revolutionary, the Matsumotos see it as the most traditional way of growing tea. Looking closely at the history of tea culture, this is quite understandable.

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TEas from The Matsumoto Family

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The fact that there are very few tea gardens today that use Zairai bushes, follow the concept of non-fertilizing, and still succeed in creating teas that are highly praised by connoisseurs, has already earned the Matsumotos a number of articles in gourmet magazines, catalogs for special gifts, and Japanese lifestyle magazine (see above).

Not using chemical synthetic fertilizers is obvious for the family. As the Matsumotos are convinced that the concept explained above is much more in-depth and comprehensive than the usual organic standards, the family does not consider having Sakura-No En certified according to the Japanese or European guidelines for organic food. This results in the disadvantage that no third-party checks compliance with the cultivation concept. However, after we visited the Matsumotos for the first time in 2010, they were able to convince us of their concept.

The decisive point for us was not only that they were able to explain their concept in detail, but also the young Mr Matsumoto’s description of how he was able to convince his parents to grow organic tea. As a traditional tea garden – which had already supplied tea to the Japanese emperor – his parents naturally feared that their first-class reputation would be damaged. The reason for this fear was that organic farming in Japan, then as now, is also seen as criticism of all conventional tea gardens, and thus of Japanese tea culture itself, even though a certain change may have taken place in the meantime. Nevertheless, in many places it cannot be overlooked that even today Japanese tea culture is still very much dominated by conventional (non-organic) tea gardens and their products.

With the wonderful variety of Matsumoto teas from Sakura-No En, we hope to contribute to a desirable and long overdue change in the way tea culture is perceived – here in Europe too. We are therefore delighted to have decided to import the teas from Sakura-No En – even without certification – and are happy to have these fantastic green teas in our line-up.

Since then, we have visited the Matsumotos many times, several times with some our customers, who are not only impressed by the quality of the teas but also by the family’s warm atmosphere. After Mr. Matsumoto first visited us in Frankfurt in autumn 2011, he came here again in autumn 2012 (17 September to 28 September 2012) to present his teas in teahouses and speciality stores in Europe.