August 2025 Newsletter

Loyal Tea Program Announcement (Daiki T.)

We are delighted to announce the launch of the Loyal Tea Program on August 25, 2025.
This program was created to express our gratitude to the many customers who have supported d:matcha for years.

During our Tea Tour this August, we welcomed a guest who has been using our online store for over six years and had purchased several dozen kilograms of matcha. Encounters like these reminded us how deeply we are supported by long-term customers, and inspired us to start a program that gives something back.

Program Overview

• Silver Matcha Leaf: Customers who spend 60,000 JPY annually → 10% off every order
• Gold Matcha Leaf: Customers who spend 120,000 JPY annually → 15% off every order
  

We are also exploring future benefits such as access to hand-picked matcha and artisanal ceramics, as we continue refining ways to reward those who support us most.

International Shipping Update

August was also a month of change for d:matcha. Approximately 40% of our individual customers are based in the United States, and until August 29, purchases under USD 800 were exempt from import taxes under the De Minimis rule. However, this regulation was unexpectedly revoked by presidential order, effective August 29, 2025.

As a result:

• A 15% reciprocal tariff now applies to Japanese exports
• Additional handling fees are charged by couriers such as DHL
  

To adapt, we are actively considering:

• Transitioning to DDP (Delivered Duty Paid) so all costs are collected at checkout and d:matcha pays duties directly to each government
• Streamlining product offerings for overseas shipments and building local fulfillment hubs in the U.S. and EU
  

While these adjustments involve significant costs (including up to 7% platform service fees), we are committed to finding both short- and long-term solutions. Your feedback and experiences will help guide us toward the best approach.

Ultimately, our long-term goal remains the same: to grow and cherish the community of loyal customers who continue to support d:matcha worldwide.

The Tea Fields After the Second Harvest (Hiroki A.)

I will explain how the tea fields are managed after the second harvest, and what they look like during this period. All post–second harvest management is essentially preparation for the first harvest of the following year.

After the second harvest, a summer pruning (called natsu-seishi) is carried out. This involves trimming the surface of the tea fields to remove unharvested new shoots and tidy up the somewhat disordered rows. At the same time, branch growth begins—these branches will form the foundation for next year’s first flush of new shoots. If this work is delayed, the autumn shoots will not grow evenly, making it difficult to form a uniform leaf layer during autumn pruning.

The branches that grow during this period are sometimes called previous-year branches or mother branches to distinguish them from the new shoots of the following spring. Here, I will refer to them as mother branches. The healthy growth of these mother branches has a major impact on the quality of the first harvest.

Mother branches grow vigorously from summer through autumn, but by around October their growth slows, and by the time frost arrives, they stop growing completely. If summer pruning is delayed, the growth of the mother branches will also be delayed, preventing proper autumn pruning on fully matured branches. This is why tea farmers remain busy even after the second harvest ends.

Once the mother branches have grown sufficiently, autumn pruning is performed. At this stage, it is important to secure a leaf layer about 5 to 7 cm above the surface cut during summer pruning. Without enough leaf layer here, the growth of the first harvest will be weak, reducing both yield and quality. In fields where growth is poor and a proper leaf layer cannot be secured, farmers sometimes skip autumn pruning altogether, leaving leaves for photosynthesis until spring and instead carrying out spring pruning (haru-seishi).

In spring, powerful new shoots for the first harvest grow from the mother branches shaped by autumn or spring pruning. Thanks to these careful pruning processes, the tea fields are neatly prepared, and the surface where the new shoots sprout becomes the harvesting plane for the first flush, ensuring that only the finest first harvest leaves are picked.

Grinding Tencha (Seiya H.)

Most of my work at d:matcha usually involves packing tea into small bags, explaining sencha and matcha during tours, serving dinner to guests at the inn, making chocolate, noodle production, and working in the fields. But since the end of last month, I also started a new task.

Starting last month, I began grinding tencha into matcha using the ball mill. In the factory, tea leaves harvested from the fields are processed into tencha. Each time, we put about 30 kilograms of this tencha into the ball mill.

On the large bags of tencha (called tate), the following information is written:
▪️ Harvest date
▪️ Cultivar and field location
▪️ Whether it was organically grown

Based on this information, we grind the necessary tencha into matcha.

The grinding process takes about two days to turn the tencha into matcha. A typical day of ball milling goes like this:
▪️ Remove the tencha that started grinding two days earlier from the ball mill
▪️ Sift the matcha and repack it into smaller bags
▪️ Label the bags with the same information listed on the tencha tate, along with the date and time the matcha was in the ball mill, and its type (pesticide-free Yabukita, latte grade, etc.)

Every time we open a new bag of tencha, its color and aroma differ completely depending on the season it was harvested (spring or summer) and the cultivar.

The History of Tea Cultivation in Wazuka Town (Misato T.)

Tea was first brought to Japan during the Heian period, in the era of the Kentōshi (Japanese envoys to Tang China). In 805, Saichō, the founder of the Tendai sect of Buddhism in Japan, returned from China as a Kentōshi and planted tea seeds he had brought back at Hiyoshi Taisha on Mount Hiei. The following year, in 806, Kūkai is also said to have brought back tea seeds and a stone mill from China, which he then planted on Mount Hiei. At that time, tea was used as medicine and for rituals among monks and aristocrats, but it did not spread to the general public, and once the Kentōshi missions were abolished, tea gradually declined.

The person who popularized tea cultivation in Japan was the monk Myōe Shōnin of Toganoo in Kyoto. In the early Kamakura period (around the late 12th century), he received tea seeds from Eisai Zenji, the founder of the Rinzai sect. Believing that tea had many beneficial effects—such as helping monks stay awake during training—Myōe enthusiastically promoted its use among monks. Furthermore, at Kōzan-ji Temple in Toganoo, Kyoto, a location well-suited for tea cultivation, he established Japan’s first tea garden and laid the foundation for tea cultivation methods.

↑ High Priest Myōe (Held at Kōzan-ji Temple, Toganoo)

Kyoto’s Toganoo had the perfect climate and terrain for tea cultivation, producing high-quality and delicious tea. The tea grown there was called Toganoo tea, and its excellence was so renowned that Toganoo tea was referred to as “honcha” (genuine tea), while tea from outside Toganoo was called “hicha” (non-tea).

During the Kamakura period, tōcha (tea contests) became popular among the upper classes. Also known as cha-kabuki, this was a game in which participants prepared and drank various teas in a large gathering, then guessed the tea’s origin or variety. The main challenge was to identify whether the tea was the genuine Toganoo tea (honcha) or one of the others (hicha).

How Tea Spread in Wazuka Town

In the Kamakura period (probably from the late 12th century to the early 13th century), the high priest Jishin Shōnin of Kaijūsen-ji Temple in neighboring Kamo Town received tea seeds from Myōe Shōnin of Toganoo, Kyoto, and cultivated them at the foot of Mount Jūbuzan. Jishin Shōnin came from the Fujiwara family, patrons of Myōe, so it is believed that their connection had already been strong even before he entered the priesthood.

At first, Myōe Shōnin gave him just a few tea seeds, but from these, tea gradually spread to Wazuka Town, Minamiyamashiro Village, and surrounding areas. Initially, the tea was grown mainly for monks at temples to use for their own practice.

By the Tenshō era (1573–79), records show that 57 a (approx. 0.57 hectares) of tea seedlings were planted in the Harayama area of Wazuka Town. By this period, signs appeared that tea cultivation in Wazuka was shifting from being mainly for personal temple use to becoming a commercial crop.

Tea Cultivation in the Yubune Area of Wazuka Town

There are no official documents regarding the very beginning of tea cultivation in the Yubune area, but a deed of sale for a tea field from 1711 suggests that tea fields were already being cultivated there at that time.

In this document, the seller was Mr. Shinzaburō from Kosugi Village in Yubune, and the buyer was Mr. Saburōbei from Kaminomura, also in Yubune. Although it does not appear to have been a large tea field, even such small-scale transactions were accompanied by properly written contracts with guarantors.

Records from Daichi-ji Temple in the Yubune area also note that when new rice fields were developed there in 1708, sencha cultivation was already taking place in the surrounding area.

It is safe to say that by at least the 1600s, tea cultivation had already spread to some extent in Yubune—the very area where d:matcha is now located. At that time, it is believed that the tea grown was almost entirely sencha, rather than tencha.

Tea Trade Between Wazuka and Edo

A ledger recording tea trade with Edo in 1849 shows that a man named Asaemon from Kamazuka in Wazuka Town played the role of a middleman, sending tea collected from Wazuka to merchants in Edo such as Yamamoto Kahei, receiving payment from them, and then distributing the money to tea merchants within Wazuka.

The total annual trade amounted to around 2,000 ryō (equivalent to roughly 20 million yen today), indicating that a significant volume of tea and money was being exchanged between Wazuka and Edo.

On the seals stamped in the ledger, the characters “Jōshū Uji Wazuka” can be seen, showing that by the mid-19th century, the name “Uji” was also being used in association with tea from Wazuka.

Ledger recording trade with Edo

In the Yubune area, traditional sencha factories still remain. By the early Taishō period (the early 1900s), machine-based tea production had become widespread, but many tea factories from the hand-rolling era, before the shift to mechanization, are still preserved.

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Sweet Rides: Discovering Asamiya Tea（S. Mahdaria）

Living in the countryside with limited transportation makes it a bit difficult for me to explore the town and nearby villages. At the end of last year, Daiki bought two bicycles for our B&B “Tea Moon” guests. At first, I hesitated to ride one, since it looked so big for me.

I’m truly grateful to my teammate from Czech, Vitek, who encouraged and supported me to bike around Wazuka and Shigaraki. Riding with him brought so much joy into my otherwise monotonous routine, and I really appreciate him for that.

Just last week, we biked to Shigaraki to try Asamiya Tea and Mochi Puff. Asamiya Tea is a premium Japanese green tea from the Asamiya region in Shigaraki, Shiga Prefecture. Recognized as one of Japan’s five most famous teas, it carries a 1,200-year history beginning from Saicho’s tea seeds. Known for its rich, smooth, and aromatic qualities with a refreshing umami, it thrives in a high-altitude, misty environment that gives it a unique balance of bitterness and sweetness. Historically, Asamiya Tea has been offered as an imperial tribute and even appeared in the works of the haiku poet Basho.

Another highlight was the Mochi Puff. I think it’s the best mochi I’ve ever had in my life! Soft and chewy with just the right amount of sweetness from the red bean filling, all wrapped in a flaky croissant-like pastry, it was heavenly! Fresh out of the oven, the crisp outside blended perfectly with the warm, melting mochi inside.

I would definitely love to do this trip again soon. But I know it will feel very different, because Vitek won’t be here anymore next month.

Vegan Sweets (Sora N.)

During the first half of the month, I focused on making sweets, while in the latter half I was mostly working in the fields. It had been a while since I last spread fertilizer, so it was tough, but compared to before I was able to work more easily, and I felt my body had grown stronger.

Recently, the topic of developing vegan sweets for use in tours came up. Since most of D-matcha’s customers are from overseas, they bring with them a wide range of food preferences and cultural backgrounds. Among them, there are quite a few vegan guests, and naturally, their food options are limited. For this reason, I was asked to create vegan desserts that could be served to them. Personally, I don’t know much about vegan sweets and have never properly researched them myself. So, in preparation for this development, I looked into it more carefully to deepen my knowledge, and I’d like to share what I learned.

First of all, vegan sweets are desserts made entirely without animal products—not just meat and fish, but also dairy products and eggs. Instead of milk, plant-based alternatives such as soy milk, almond milk, coconut milk, or oat milk are used. Instead of butter, coconut oil, seed oils, or soybean oil are used. For eggs, substitutes like bananas, applesauce, or tofu are commonly used. As for sweeteners, maple syrup, agave syrup, and beet sugar are often chosen. White sugar, although made from sugarcane, is sometimes refined using bone char (burnt animal bones from cows or pigs) to remove impurities, which makes it non-vegan. However, not all white sugar is refined this way—some use lime in the process instead, and that type of sugar is considered vegan-friendly.

Because vegan sweets rely heavily on plant-based ingredients, they are said to be lower in calories and fat compared to regular sweets, while being rich in vitamins and minerals, making them healthier. From an environmental perspective as well, animal-based foods put a heavier burden on the environment during production, whereas plant-based foods are considered to have a smaller impact.

Since dairy products like milk cannot be used in vegan sweets, soy milk plays an important role in filling that gap. In sweets-making, eggs usually act as binders, leavening agents, and emulsifiers, but soy milk can take over part of these functions. It also helps make batters moist and smooth. At D-matcha, we already have several vegan products, and most of them use soy milk. Soy milk is not only a familiar ingredient used in both vegan and non-vegan sweets, but it is also something many people drink daily. I believe it is a versatile ingredient that supports both people’s health and the environment.