Cultivated Varieties of Japanese tea - Samidori
Samidori | さみどり
- Registered as an official cultivar in 1954.
- Native to Uji, Kyoto Prefecture.
- This cultivar is compatible for the production of both sencha and matcha.
Samidori is a well-recognised variety in Kyoto Prefecture because of its distinct flavour profile and appealing colour.
Similar to gokou, the young sprouts of the samidori cultivar grow upright. This also makes the samidori an ideal choice for the production of handpicked tea.
In the recent years, more tea farmers have been choosing samidori when replanting new cultivars of tea trees.
Samidori is often cultivated for the production of tencha.
While samidori is more commonly cultivated for the production of tencha for matcha, at d:matcha Kyoto we have produced sencha samidori. Due the exclusitivity of the product, we were only able to harvest 9kg of sencha samidori.
Samidori is known to possess a deep umami taste, with little bitterness. The natural sweetness of this variety is further emphasised by its deep jade green colour when brewed.
The matcha served at tea ceremonies in Kyoto Prefecture is often made from an artful blend of samidori and other Japanese tea cultivars.
In 2021 however, due to several factors, our samidori tea fields were badly hit by the frost in the middle of April.
Young samidori tea sprouts had begun emerging due to the change in temperature between day and night. The delicate samidori tea leaves were unable to withstand the impact of the frost. Incidents like these are natural disasters and part and parcel of the realities of a tea farmer's life.
