Tanegashima Tea

Tea on Tanegashima

Tanegashima is a secret haven for tea in Japan. It's climate matches that of Shizuoka and the rest of Kagoshima,  the two main tea regions of Japan. But because Tanegashima is a bit more south than the others the tea grown here matures faster than its counterparts on the mainland.

In fact tea grown on Tanegashima has a special name, 極早生種(gokuwaseshu) meaning a very fast growing varietal. It is sometimes also called 早葉(hayaba) meaning fast or quick leaf. The earliest teas to be made in Japan often come from Tanegashima and its sister island Yakushima. They are valued as an indicator of the quality of year to come.

Most of the tea produced on Tanegashima is 煎茶(sencha) which is actually broken up into more distinct groups. The three types that we are concerned with today are 浅蒸(asamushi), 普通蒸(futsuumushi), and 深蒸(fukamushi). In Kagoshima proper fukamushi reigns supreme. Most of the tea in this region has been deeply steamed to maintain a verdant green color in the tea. The trade off of this deep steam is that the tea leaves tend to break down and lose much of their fragrant overtones.  On the other hand, tea from tanegashima is usually only of the asamushi of futuumushi variety, this means that the length of the leaves is preserved and the tea has much more of a floral taste.

When brewing this kind of tea, keeping the water temperature low helps to bring out the full body of the tea. After each consecutive poor, adding hotter water will help keep the flavor of the tea as you drink through the usual 3-4 infusions that sencha can be brewed.

Tanegashima is also home to a number of infusion type drinks that will be covered in later posts, thank you for reading!



Harvest 5times a year