Kōyō - Uji Gyokuro

Carefully blended from both machine and hand-picked leaves from across Kyōto and Uji, this gyokuro represents the refinement and elegance of Uji tea, using cultivars known for their excellence as shaded tea—samidori, uji-hikari, saemidori, and gokou. Uji city in Kyoto has long been at the centre of Japanese tea and has been famed for its high-quality matcha production for centuries, dating back to the 12th century. The shading method used to produce modern matcha (c. 16th century) along with sencha (1737) and gyokuro itself (1835) were all invented by Uji farmers looking to push the boundaries of tea quality. Though the name Ujicha remains associated with high-grade tea, most tea branded as Ujicha is produced in the neighbouring towns of Ujitawara, Minamiyamashiro, Kizugawa, and primarily Wazuka.