2026 HARVEST TRACEABILITY
At d:matcha, from our farm to your teacup, we manage every single part of the process, from cultivation and harvesting on our farms, to processing in our factories, right down to final packaging at our main store.
All done by us in Wazuka, Kyoto.
2026 Ichibancha
Year-Round Care
The exceptional quality of this season's flush is a direct result of our rigorous, year-round farming efforts. Beyond seasonal soil composition maintenance, our careful shading process is absolutely key to unlocking the deep umami and vibrant color of our matcha, kabusecha, and gyokuro.
Read more about our farming practices
Upholding Tradition
This year, we began harvesting four new handpicked cultivars, Ujihikari, Houshun, Komakage, and Yumewakaba, on top of our usual collection. We were excited to perform traditional handpicking for the first time.
- Hand-Picking Rooted in deep cultural tradition, handpicking protects delicate leaf architecture and allows pickers to select only the newest, youngest leaves, yielding matcha of exceptional quality. We worked with our neighboring local grandmas, many of whom have been participating in handpicking yearly for dozens of years.
- Manual Machine Harvesting Navigating Wazuka's steep, hilly terrain requires a highly skill-based machine harvesting strategy. This is executed using a 2-person arched handheld trimmer guided directly on the slopes by Daiki and Hiroki, our farming leads.
Our Tencha and Sencha Factories
To ensure total quality control and processing autonomy, we operate separate dedicated factories tailored to our two main offerings of matcha and sencha.
Tencha Factory
Carefully controlled steaming and traditional brick oven drying turn harvested leaves into tencha, ready to be ground into matcha.
Sencha Factory
Precision rolling machinery that shapes the leaves into thin, emerald needles while locking in aromatics.
Ichibancha Harvest Tracker
Hover over or tap highlighted dates to view the exact fields harvested on that specific day.
Cultivar Identity Label
Dynamic description mapping context values.
Harvested Field Logs
This specific cultivar batch is derived from the plots listed below:
