Name: Wazuka Zairai Sencha
Brand: Tezumi Specialty
SKU: US-TEA-S10-50
Price: 20.0 USD
Availability: OutOfStock

50 grams

Single Origin | Single Cultivar*

Ships from the United States

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Made from 60-year old seed-grown zairai plants, cultivated without the use of pesticides or chemical fertilisers, this light-steamed sencha is vibrant and zesty, with a slight minerality and lasting finish. The combination of natural farming, Uji native zairai, light-steaming, and a delicate firing (火入 - hiire) over charcoal gives this tea refreshing and classic taste.

While Uji may be the most famous tea region in Kyoto, most tea sold as “Ujicha” is actually grown in the neighbouring town of Wazuka, located to the southeast, which produces almost 50% of Uji tea. Dating back to the Kamakura era, tea production in Wazuka has enjoyed an 800-year history. The tea plantations in Wazuka are located on the steep slopes of misty hills and mountains—an environment suitable for high-quality tea leaves, with cool air, short daylight hours, temperature differences between day and night, and well-drained soil. Cultivation of tea plants in such an environment takes a lot of time and effort, making it unsuitable for the methods of mass production employed in the flatlands.

Cultivar: 60 year-old Zairai

Producer: Chaen Morifuku

Harvested: May 8, 2024

Elevation: 150m

Brewing Instructions

Tea/Water Ratio

2g per 50ml of water
(.07oz per 1.7oz)

Water Temperature

80ºC (185ºF)

Brewing Time

45 seconds
(+10 seconds for subsequent infusions)

Meet the Producer

Chaen Morifuku (茶園森福)

Farm leader Ryo Morisaki has a unique story among tea producers. Rather than being born into the industry, Morisaki-san was born in Tokyo and studied IT and environmental engineering at university before working as a system engineer for five years.

In 2015, however, he started training as a tea farmer in Kyoto, deciding to pursue a career in Japanese culture. Since then he has become a certified tea farmer in 2016, a Nihoncha Instructor in 2017, and recently won 3rd place at the Uji Temomicha (手揉み茶 - hand-rolled sencha) Competition in 2020.

On the 88th night (八十八夜 - hachijuu-hachiyoru, the traditional day of tea picking) of 2016, Ryo Morisaki (森崎領) founded Chaen Morifuku with goal of producing tea that is friendly to the Earth, society, customer, and producer. Though not JAS certified, they use only high-quality organic fertilisers and avoid pesticides and herbicides.

They pride themselves on preserving the traditional heritage of Uji tea production, such as 100 year old native Zairai tea plants, light steaming, and delicate charcoal firing (火入 - hi-ire). One of their four tea fields, Matsunō (松の尾 - Pine Ridge) has been registered as a Cultural Property of Japan Heritage.

Here they grow Uji Zairai and seedlings from Yabukita, alongside Okumidori and Gokou tea plants. In their other fields they also grow Samidori, Uji Midori, Sayamakaori, Yamakai, Kanayamidori, and Yabukita.

Altogether, their four tea fields measure only 1.2 hectares. In addition to sencha and tencha (matcha), Chaen Morifuku produces genmaicha and charcoal-roasted houjicha. In the past 5 years, Morisaki-san has also been making small amounts of exquisite white tea by hand.

Cultivar: 60 year-old Zairai

Confusingly, Zairai is not a cultivar, but rather a term used to refer to ‘native’ or seed-grown tea plants of unknown ancestry. In China, these types of plants are called quntizhong, and in other industries they are called landraces or heirloom varietals.

Throughout most of tea’s history, tea was grown from seed, producing genetically unique plants, each with its own taste, shape, budding time, yield, and disease resistance. Today, however, most tea is grown through clonal propagation of cultivars through cutting, producing genetically identical bushes. Zairai gardens often have higher disease resistance due to their genetic diversity, but this same diversity makes them harder to harvest, resulting in significantly reduced yield and consistency, which is why most farms in Japan switched over to cultivar production in the 20th century.

However, tea produced from Zairai bushes tends to have a deeper flavour, resulting from the deep-growing roots of the older seed-grown plants, along with the natural ‘blend’ produced by these diverse plants.