2024 marks the seventh year of partnership with Kiyoharu Tsuji, one of the most decorated matcha producers in all of Japan and one of Zach's guiding mentors. The first allotment of his 2024 harvest has arrived in our Fukuoka offices and we are excited to offer this shincha matcha collection as a pre-order, giving you the opportunity to taste some of the freshest, most coveted matcha coming out of Uji. Additionally, our new Suiho Matcha , overseen by Kiyoharu Tsuji, is now available for preorder.
Domestic pre-orders will ship for free and will be dispatched once the tea arrives in our Brooklyn warehouse. We expect the tea to arrive within the next 10 days.
I first met the venerable tea maker Kiyoharu Tsuji in 2018. At that point, I had been sourcing tea for around 6 years but was continually coming up short with the Matcha in Uji. I had discovered remarkable Matcha in Yame early on and had fallen in love with its profile—and my customers had too. I would meet with tea makers in Uji again and again, but after tasting the Matcha I always felt like they landed flat. Some had great fragrance but no body, or intense umami but the astringency was beyond what I thought could sell in the USA. And the price…Uji was and still is expensive. So for many years, I was selling Matcha without Uji represented. I thought "What am I doing wrong?" And it wasn’t just a lack of “knowing where to look”—I met with many of the best chashi and tea farmers making very good tea—just not tea that made me feel like I had to have it on the menu. I was frustrated and upset—was it me? It wasn’t. The truth is there is just a lot of Matcha made in Uji—and a good deal of it is just OK.
I can say matter of factly that my views on Uji Matcha, and Matcha in general, were upended after meeting Kiyoharo Tsuji in the Spring of 2018. Tsuji san has a keen awareness of the foreign tea market—he is not only an artist, he is a businessman too. He understands that finding partnerships with people he trusts is his best marketing. He cares deeply—perhaps most deeply—about sharing what he has learned. With almost anyone. When I first met him, he was on the phone. And I’ve since noticed, he is almost always on the phone. Most of the time, it's other farmers calling him to ask questions. And Tsuji san is happy to answer each and everyone of them. I have seen people ask him questions and 20 minutes into the answer, look as though they regret asking. Tsuji san is not light on information and never skips the details. He is the professor of Tencha to all of Japan. And in 2018, He became my professor as well and the first to represent Uji matcha in the Kettl catalog.
tradition”—in fact, he seems to make his own. When it comes to plant science, he may be the most well-versed farmer in Japan. But he is no lab scientist, he still believes talking to the plants is the most valuable way to learn. “Ask them, and they will tell you what they want”. He follows an 80/20 philosophy—use what you’ve learned and what works 80% of the time, and always utilize your creativity to challenge yourself and your expectations 20% of the time. His shading methodology is a perfect example. Tsuji san often laments how much hotter it is nowadays compared to a decade ago. “There is no longer Spring. Winter ends, it warms for a few days, and then the intense heat of summer is upon us in April. The weather is so different—we must adapt our approach”.
The intense heat comes at a price. Sunburned leaves, quickened growth, and teas lacking depth and personality, if harvestable at all. This lead Tsuji san to consider his shading methods. The accepted theory is that traditional Honzu rice straw coverings provide the most refined flavor and aroma by releasing built-up heat from under the covering and from the random doppling of light they create. Ask anyone and they’ll tell you Honzu is a sign of pinnacle quality. “While this is true, you have to remember it was not as hot as it is now a hundred years ago. The strength of the sun now is beyond what my father and grandfather dealt with. This made me think I must develop something new.” After a year of development, he is now using a special type of Kanreisha covering knit to his specifications. Offering similar doppling and increased UV protection, Tsuji san has all but stopped using traditional Honzu coverings—something unheard of. What's even more unheard of, he has not only maintained quality but he has increased it. It is this type of out-of-the-box thinking and personal investment of time and capital that have made him the most revered producer of Tencha in Japan.
Kiyoharu Tsuji’s name is now synonymous with Uji matcha. His commitment to both tradition and innovation in forty years of matcha production has led to his earning more awards in the field of tea than anyone else in Japan. His accolades include six awards from Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forest and Fisheries as well as the 56th Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Agriculture. What more could he do? What else could he want? So much more. Kiyoharu Tsuji is not slowing down. He still dreams about how to improve his quality, how to connect to a wider audience, and now how to create a bigger impact for the future of tea - and this means developing the next generation. His son, Koki, is now not just learning from his father, he is chasing him to become the next #1. With an heir to the farm secured, father Kiyoharu Tsuji continues to explore and challenge himself in crafting peerless Matcha.
Now the baton is passed to us. We are proud to bring you our seventh seasonal offering of Matcha from Kiyoharu Tsuji for the seventh season. We are thrilled to have his complete 2024 collection, including a special lot of Uji Hikari made available only to us. While all of you won’t get the chance to pull back to the cover, step beneath the shades, and admire the soft glow of green in his fields in Shirakawa, you can still bring home the fresh, rich flavor of pinnacle Tsuji Matcha. We are proud to call Tsuji san and Koki san friends, and we are proud to work in partnership with them to share Japan’s finest teas. And beyond that, we are proud to see the explosive growth of Matcha in the West and are so grateful for all who read this blog, purchase teas, and share them with others. We now pass the baton to you - you’ll need some Matcha for the journey.
We are proud to release the entire 2024 Shirakawa Collection here
2024 Suiho Matcha is available here
