Wazuka Zairai Sencha

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.

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.