As introduced on other columns, growing competition grade tea requires a surprising amount of money and effort. We introduce a few topics on competition grade tea below.

(Fertilizing)
Fertilizer for competition grade tea costs several times more than usual high grade tea. A few times amount and more expensive fertilizer is used. For example, the below pictures show herrings used as fertilizer. Whole herrings, which are also edible for humans, are fragmented into small pieces, and they are carefully distributed at the roots of the tea trees and among the tea trees. When the tea trees absorb the nutrition of fertilizer, the tea leaves for competition tea have an amazing glossy brilliance, much more so than tea leaves for other tea. Even the tea leaves for usual high grade hand picked tea shine more than common machine trimmed tea. You can see this in the below pictures. They are never unveiled.

(Shading)
In the case of Gyokuro and Matcha, one of the most difficult issues is knowing exactly when to shade the tea leaves from sunlight. If too early, tea leaves can't absorb nutrition and the flavor is weak. If too late, the noble mellow aroma is weak. As the time for shading approaches, the farmer carefully checks tea leaves growth and condition quite frequently. Our tea farmer says that when shade is required, the tea leaves talk and ask him to provide shade from sunlight.

(Harvest / Processing)
Competition tea is harvested when the tea tree has only one or two sprouts. In general, the flavor of the tea becomes more intense when the tea tree produces two to five sprouts. If the quantity of tea leaves is too small, the tea can't be processed, so a good amount of tea leaves are required. Therefore, double or triple the number of hand pickers are needed. Arrangement of gathering hand pickers is one of the difficulties with growing competition tea. Fresh tea leaves are processed just after harvest. Processing is one of the most important factors for competition tea. To process competition grade tea, the farmer has many special and wise techniques learned over generations and through trial and error, including subtle yet vitally important adjustments to temperature, time, and the production environment.

We have arranged to add three limited edition Competition Grade teas and two limited edition Belended Sencha teas.

Competition Grade Tea is extremely rare and available only at the National Tea Fair of Japan, attended by those within the Japanese green tea industry. The flavor is unique only to teas contributed to the exclusive competition and quite different from usual tea.

Belended Sencha has concurrently two different characteristics: the aroma of Sencha and the taste of Gyokuro. They are composed of fine and unique breeds of tea with special characteristics. Each individual tea is more sweet and mellow than basic Sencha, characteristic of Gyokuro. But, it has a more refreshing aroma than Gyokuro, characteristic of Sencha.

Competition Grade Tea is limited edition of just 650 packages each and Blended Sencha is limited edition of just 850 packages each ONLY AVAILABLE this winter season.