The Yamaguchi Family | The future of matcha might not be where you expect
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Time to read 4 min
The story of Kettl is inseparable from the stories of the producers we work with. We see our role as stewards and partners in bringing their teas to a wider audience and celebrating the vast world of Japanese tea and all of its concentric circles—craft, cuisine, and community. It is in this spirit that we launched our producer series.
Each month, we highlight a producer, the range of offerings we source from them, and tell the story of our collaboration through words and images. In addition to these deep dives on some of Japan’s most respected and emerging voices, we will be running a celebratory promotion to help share their incredible teas with our community. This month, we are highlighting the Yamaguchi family. We are running a promotion between June 15th at 8:59 am ET and Sunday, June 22nd at 11:59 pm ET—all orders that contain one matcha product from our catalog will receive a free tin of the Yamaguchi family's Satsuma Organic Tsuyuhikari matcha. In addition, all orders that contain two matcha products from our catalog will also receive a tin of Satsuma Organic Saemidori matcha.
For most of Matcha’s modern history, the conversation has centered around a handful of regions. Uji. Yame. Nishio. Places whose names have become synonymous with excellence and whose producers have spent generations refining the craft of cultivating and processing Tencha. Yet some of the most exciting developments in Japanese tea are now taking place far from these traditional centers. One such example comes from Satsuma, Kagoshima.
Several years ago, I was traveling through Satsuma with my wife, Minami. We had spent the previous few days visiting tea producers throughout the region. At the time, I was specifically searching for Matcha. While I had tasted many interesting teas, I had yet to find one that truly resonated. One evening, after arriving at our hotel, I posted a story on Instagram mentioning that I was in the area looking for Matcha. A short time later, I received a message from a producer whose logo seemed strangely familiar. I realized I had purchased one of their teas at a roadside market the day before.
The message was fairly direct: if I was interested in quality Matcha, I should come visit. Their farm was only twenty minutes away. The next morning, I accepted the invitation. What I found was exactly what I had been searching for: teas made with care that reflected the land they came from rather than impressions of somewhere else. There was no attempt to recreate Uji. No effort to imitate another region. The teas felt confident in their own identity.
That visit marked the beginning of our relationship with the Yamaguchi family.
For more than four decades, the Yamaguchis have cultivated tea in southern Kyushu. Like many producers in Kagoshima, their expertise was built around Sencha production, cultivating individual cultivars and expressing the character of their terroir. Matcha was not part of their history. At least not until recently.
Driven by a fascination with Matcha and a desire to explore new possibilities, the family began converting a portion of their fields to Tencha cultivation. The transition was neither quick nor simple. After years of study and consultation with experienced tea makers in Uji, they constructed a dedicated Tencha processing facility and began producing their own Matcha.
What makes this tea particularly compelling is not simply where it is grown, but what is grown.
Tsuyuhikari and Samemdori are cultivars more commonly associated with Sencha than Matcha. They are celebrated for vivid freshness, floral aromatics, and distinctive character. In the context of Matcha, they offer something altogether different from the cultivars most often found in traditional production regions. The resulting tea is expressive and aromatic, presenting notes of spring greens, white flowers, and subtle spice that feel unmistakably tied to Kagoshima.
For decades, Kagoshima has established itself as one of Japan’s most important tea-producing regions. The prefecture’s mild winters, abundant sunlight, and volcanic soils have made it a center of innovation and agricultural excellence. While historically better known for Sencha, an increasing number of producers are now exploring the possibilities of Matcha, bringing with them a different set of assumptions, cultivars, and perspectives. The result is not an attempt to replicate Uji.
The most exciting emerging regions are those willing to embrace their own identity rather than imitate another’s. The future of Japanese tea depends not only on preserving tradition but also on creating space for new traditions to emerge. When we taste this Matcha, we are reminded that Japanese tea remains a living craft. New producers continue to enter the field. New regions continue to find their voice. New cultivars continue to reveal possibilities we have not yet fully explored.
The emergence of producers like the Yamaguchi family is also increasingly important for the future of Matcha itself. Demand for Matcha has grown dramatically around the world, while the production of exceptional Tencha remains limited by geography, labor, and time. Traditional producing regions such as Uji and Yame continue to set the standard, but they alone cannot meet the needs of a rapidly expanding global market. The future of Japanese tea will depend not only on preserving these historic centers of excellence but also on supporting thoughtful producers in regions like Kagoshima who are willing to invest in quality, experiment with new cultivars, and develop identities of their own.
Visit our matcha collection to take advantage of our Producer Profile Series promotion and experience these unique offerings representative of the Yamaguchi family's expert cultivation and processing.
