This tea needed a special label and name. Knowledge binds, [curiosity releases]. If you constrict yourself to the path of normalcy in tea or life, you’ll never experience its (or your) true potential. How fascinating are the edges of this world! The label had to be over the top — I want you, or whoever you give this to, to have a visceral reaction to it. I want you to understand that this label is as different from regular acceptable marketing as gyokuro is from other tea in the world. Surely we could even agree that this gyokuro is leaps and bounds different from other gyokuro, because this is a truly remarkable tea.

The facts are that this is a competition grade gyokuro  dubbed ‘tenkaichi’ (#1 Under Heaven) from Kuma En in, Yame, Fukuoka. This year (2022) they placed 17th out of 150+ entries across Japan; but Kuma En has won first place with this product before when it was sourced from the same cultivar on the same field. It’s a micro lot that has the best growing conditions on the mountain.
Gyokuro is the connoisseurs tea in Japan and makes an excellent gift for tea aficionados, though for beginners its quite a polarizing product due to its potent umami flavor.  Gyokuro is very different than other teas, in a sense that it should be brewed potently and drank in small amounts for the best effect. A standard brewing method for gyokuro is using 5 grams tea with 50mL water at 50 degrees Celsius and brewed for 2 to 3 minutes (I prefer 3). It gets its flavor from growing in forced shade by blocking the sun with mats of woven rice straw.

To speak to its sensory aspects. The dry leaf has aromas of chocolate, mushrooms, and seaweed. The first infusion tastes like an asteroid hit the earth and in a split second the ocean and everything in it evaporated, condensed, and turned into an aroma (scallops, seaweed, salt water). The second infusion gets a little more normal, perhaps like overripe kiwi and sweet corn. The third infusion is like a potent sencha, by contrast to the first two it’s much more normal. A session of gyokuro should explore all 3 rounds at least, perhaps going to 5. It commands a lot of attention and presence of minds when drinking, but it rewards you with an olfactory experience that other teas could only dream to create.

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If I had to choose 2 tea styles to represent my preference of tea to the world, I would choose gyokuro and phoenix oolong.

This is my first time to ever sell gyokuro on my shop, stars have aligned, and I have been able to finally start to work with a producer I am proud of. Kuma En of Joyo Town, in Yame, Fukuoka, Japan. You could drink this tea as a volume-based easy-drinking beverage at a ratio of 1:100 and still enjoy the unique umami that gyokuro brings to the world of tea. You can also enjoy it as the sencha-do, 1:10 powerhouse of umami that puts gyokuro on the world stage. The fact that you can do both is an important criteria for what differentiates good and great gyokuro to me.

Drinking this tea at 1:10 gives a powerful fresh scallop note with nori seaweed in the first infusion, overripe kiwi and nori seaweed in the second infusion, nori seaweed with walnuts and mayonnaise in the 3rd infusion. In presenting this tea to the customers of my shop @ www.late.red I haven’t had anyone who wasn’t absolutely impressed so far. Its an honour and privilege for me to introduce this style of tea to people. So great.

While gyokuro can be made in any place from any cultivar of the tea bush, the best in the country seem to come from 3 places in Japan (Yame, Kyotanabe, Okabecho) all the best ones are the same cultivar (Saemidori) — Saemidori is exceptionally fragrant and has a stong ‘yellow colored’ (synasthesia thing) core.

Below is some additional information I’ve gathered about gyokuro over the years. I hope you find it interesting.

Gyokuro is on my short lists of favorite teas. I read a book called ‘Tea of the Sages’ by Patricia Jane Graham which included the origin story of gyokuro. I’ll summarize the part about Gyokuro here:

Steeped teas whether sencha or bancha have been in production in Japan from the mid 1600s. Steeped tea only became a mainsteam hit in Japan after the year 1738 when a man named Nagatani Soen of the Yamamotoyama tea shop perfected the production techniques of growing and processing tea leaves for sencha. Until this time, steeped tea in Japan was only popular in Sinophile circles and not the general public.

Nagatani’s descendants continued to innovate and create higher qualities of tea in the market, eventually applying the shading technique used in the production of tencha (for matcha). Shading the tea plant helped the farmers deal with irregular/out of season frost problems. Shading the plant also had the benefit of increasing the caffeine content and reducing tannins in the finished tea.

The man credited with the application of shade growing to sencha and coining the term ‘Gyokuro’ (Jade Dew) is Yamamoto Tokujin. The name comes from the color of the juice expelled from the steamed gyokuro leaves once they have been put through the rolling process. Gyokuro has been available to the public since 1835.

After the invention of gyokuro, sencha’s popularity soared. For the first time ever interest for sencha surpassed matcha/chanoyu albeit only briefly. The complexities in the manufacturing process of gyokuro could only be supported by a high sales price which only connoisseurs could/would afford. Gyokuro became the standard tea for ‘sencha gatherings’ and only on the rare occasion would lower quality teas be used (sencha or bancha)

To this day Yamamotoyama is still in business. https://www.yamamotoyama.co.jp/index.html

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A few other things I considered highlights in the book were:

‘To pre-modern Japanese, China embodied the highest civilized values. The ability to read and write in Chinese and possession of Chinese artifacts initially helped to distinguish those who belonged to elite Japanese society’

‘Formerly they (The Japanese) had grudgingly acknowledged China’s superiority. Now, as foreigners (the Manchurian’s) ruled China, the Japanese government could legitimately claim parity with and even superiority over China. Ming loyalists who settled in Japan reinforced perceptions that China was no longer the “Middle Kingdom” and that the new center of Chinese Confucian culture had shifted to Japan’

‘By maintaining or re-instituting antique Japanese forms that were closely modeled on those of ancient China, Japanese authorities reasoned that they had perpetuated the authentic culture from which latter-day China had deviated’

‘The Japanese political structure, which was based on military might and inherited birthright (The Shogun Era), was basically at odds with the Confucian philosophy’s dictate that the right to rule be mandated by moral conduct.’

‘According to Gettan, the early Japanese Zen monks understood the spiritual benefits derived from the taste of superb quality tea, but as chanoyu became formalized and adopted as an avocation by wealthy samurai and others, the emphasis shifted from the tea itself to an ostentatious display of material possessions. He implies that only Obaku monks and reclusive proponents of sencha remained true to the lofty ideals of their predecessors in their preference for fine-tasting tea brewed simply in a kettle in their humble homes.’

‘The final step necessary to the process of creating a sencha tea ceremony was for someone actively to promote it as an alternative avocation to chanoyu among the general population. This was accomplished by Baisao who championed sencha on the streets of Kyoto.’

‘Despite his many illustrious friends, Baisao seems to have lived in impoverishment, though happily, throughout his life. He charged customers no fixed price, but asked them to pay what they could by dropping coins into a hollow bamboo tube that he placed beside his stall. Nearby, a sign proclaimed that he was sorry for his inability to charge less than nothing, but urged patrons not to grudge him “one paltry sen”

‘I alone love the idleness
Of long summer days
Beside a fragrant brazier
Under ten thousand pines;
The sweltering heat
Of the human world
Cannot reach here;
Nor need I seek
The rare landscapes
Of the Sages ‘ realm.
I ladle my water
From pure Otawa springs;
My tea is grown in China
I have It sent from home.
Life’s greatest joy
Is to he free from care,
Yet still the world laughs
At my mind’s crazy turns.’

‘This place of mine,
so poor I’m often even out of water;
But I offer you an elixir
To change your very marrow.
You’ll find me in the pines,
By the Hall of a Thousand Buddhas,
Come take a drink — who knows?
You may reach Sagehood yourself.’

‘By 1738 sencha had become so popular that Nagatani Soen, a tea grower in Uji who was acquainted with Baisao, initiated specialized methods to produce a bright jade green-colored leaf tea, known as sencba, whose sweet-tasting flavor was particularly praised by Baisao. Nagatani selected the finest of the young leaves and, as is still done today, soaked them in water, steamed them to curtail their fermentation, and dried them over a grill. This new process replaced the older practice of oven roasting a mixture of tough twigs and old leaves.’

‘Shortly before he died, Baisao ceremoniously cast his tea utensils into a fire to prevent their becoming the cherished possessions of others, an act that consciously defied the chanoyu tradition of revering and placing great monetary value on the utensils made and owned by celebrated tea masters.’

‘Water for bancha was heated in heavy iron kettles called Tetsubin’s. Tetsubin’s were used only in the most informal services of Sencha.’

‘When metal kettles were used for sencha, the preference was for light weight, finer materials such as copper, silver, or gold.’

‘Kiyomizu ceramics are closely linked with sencha’

‘chanoyu is about knowledge, sencha is about purity of spirit.’

‘Though I cannot flee
From the world of corruption,
I can prepare tea
with water from a mountain stream
and put my heart to rest’