The d:matcha Cultivar Guide
Ever wonder why different green teas can have such varied flavors? The answer is in its cultivar. Just like wine grapes, different tea plant cultivars yield completely unique flavor, umami, and aromatic signatures. At d:matcha, we proudly cultivate single-cultivar teas to showcase the uniqueness of our terroir.
Cultivar Compendium
What is a Tea Cultivar?
A cultivar (cultivated variety), is a specific variety of the tea plant Camellia Sinensis. While all traditional tea plants belong to that identical species, through careful historical selection, distinct variations have emerged. Different cultivars have key differences in their flavor, growth characteristics, and yield. Farmers often grow a variety of cultivars to balance flavor, climate resilience, workflow, and customer demands.
In Japan, tea is typically sold under generic blended brand names, hiding individual cultivar uniqueness. At d:matcha, our matcha is a snapshot of our terroir. By processing our harvest by single-cultivar at our in-house factories, we invite you to appreciate the specific, unblended terroir variables of our Wazuka fields. Our goal is to invite customers into a deeper world of Japanese tea: to experience differences not only between cultivars, but also between regions, terroirs, and even individual farmers. Single cultivar highlights the character of one tea plant varietal, its aroma, taste, and personality, untouched. Our choice of producing single-cultivar matcha is a direct reflection of our farm-to-table philosophy.
Our Kyoto Heritage
Kyoto Prefecture, and especially the ancient Uji region and surrounding Wazuka valley hillsides, is the historical birthplace of Japanese shade-grown cultivation. Because of this rich lineage, Kyoto maintains a dedicated suite of unique endemic cultivars found strictly within this region.
Kyoto farmers prioritize taste and craftsmanship over high yield, emphasizing deep umami, soft sweetness, and low bitterness. Iconic varieties like Gokou, Samidori, and Ujihikari were explicitly bred for Kyoto's unique climate, culture, and terroir.
Japan's Green Tea Cultivars
In Japan, there is over 150 registered tea cultivars. This distribution fluctuates based on the region, as each prefecture develops cultivars suited to its local climate and customer demands. In general, it takes over 30 years to register a new tea cultivar after selecting one from thousands of cross-bred plants.
Explore d:matcha's collection
Gokou
Detailed cultivar data goes here.
