Matcha ~ Fine Organic Barista Blend 🇯🇵

Nakai Family Matcha // Fine Grade
Japanese Powdered Green Tea
From Harayama, Wazuka, Soraku District, Kyoto Prefecture, Honshu Island, Japan

40g Tin

This tea is organically grown!

During our R&D 2024 trip to Japan we had the privilege of experiencing Nakai Family Matcha in the tea gardens of Harayama overlooking a beautiful vista of Wazuka tea town.

This fine grade Matcha is produced especially to be blended with sweeting ingredients in Barista style drinks. A first flush Matcha with an olive green appearance with a nori aroma. Whisking into a good foam that has a strong and tart umami flavour with vegetal and bold umami notes.

Harvested in May, the first flush, from mixed cultivar, grown using Kabuse direct shading cultivation. The tea has been shaded for 21+ days, prior to a machine harvest then  processed by Tea master Nakai and family. Ground in bead mills opposed to granite stone mills, yielding a coarser finish than 'drinking' matcha resulting in muted colour, increased astringency & bold flavour. This Matcha blends very well with many milks, white chocolate, almonds, citrus or fruits.

Nakai was the first tea farm to be organically certified in Japan with tea fields free of pesticides, herbicides and synthetic fertilisers.

Nakai Tea Garden has enjoyed a 350 year history of tea cultivation in Wazuka, since the Genroku Era (late 1660’s). 
In 1986 the 6th generation Tea Master Michio Nakai switched to all natural cultivation for the health of the environment and fellow tea drinkers. This decision was met with alot of backlash at the time but Michio-san and family were committed, despite all the nay-sayers. After organic practices began, by 1993 the tea garden was producing excellent tea. 
In the same year, Michio-san with a group of founders created JONA - the Japanese Organic & Natural Foods Association serving an organic standards agency. This would lead to the Japanese Agricultural Standards or JAS being launched in 2000 by JONA.