Cultivar-Specific Teas, Masterfully Curated: Moriuchi Tea Farm’s Creations Loved Across The World【Honyama Tea, Shizuoka Prefecture】

Located in Uchimaki, Shizuoka Prefecture, Moriuchi Tea Farm is a historic tea farm with a legacy spanning 300 years, dating back to the Edo period. Today, it is managed by ninth-generation owner Yoshio Moriuchi and his wife, Masumi. The farm produces a wide variety of teas— including hand-rolled, black, and fermented teas— all of which have earned numerous accolades at both national tea fairs and international green tea competitions. Their designation as official gifts for the Japanese royal family further highlights their exceptional quality.

The farm integrates every step of tea production and finishing, cultivating more than 14 tea cultivars that reflect the rich characteristics of the local land. Visitors can immerse themselves in the Japanese Tea Café Experience, which offers plantation tours and tea tastings in a beautifully preserved 150-year-old traditional Japanese house. This experience attracts tea enthusiasts from Japan and around the globe.

This article explores the diverse teas crafted by Moriuchi Tea Farm, the artisanal techniques behind them, and their universal appeal, featuring an interview with Masumi Moriuchi.

About Moriuchi Tea Farm

Located in Uchimaki, Shizuoka Prefecture, Moriuchi Tea Farm is a historic tea farm with a legacy spanning 300 years, dating back to the Edo period. Today, it is managed by ninth-generation owner Yoshio Moriuchi and his wife, Masumi.

▲ Dedicated to producing high-quality tea while minimizing environmental impact, they are proud to have been certified as Eco Farmers by the local municipalities.

Moriuchi Tea Farm produces a wide variety of hand-rolled, hand-picked, cultivar-specific, fermented, and black teas, all of which are high quality— winning numerous awards at national and international tea fairs, green tea contests, and competitions. In 2002, it also received the honor of being designated as an Imperial tea garden.

Winning prizes for black tea in the Premium Tea Contest 2021 and in the 4-kilogram category of regular sencha at the National Tea Fair 2023 for the 10th consecutive year, solidifying their position as a leading tea producer in the Shizuoka region.

The Teas at Moriuchi Tea Farm

The Honyama area, nestled along the upper banks of the Abe and Warashina Rivers, is widely known as a production center of high-quality teas, once being enjoyed as Imperial Tea by Ieyasu Tokugawa in the Edo period.

Moriuchi Tea Farm grows more than 14 cultivars. With a thorough understanding of the characteristics of each variety, they manufacture a wide variety of hand-rolled, hand-picked, varietal, semi-fermented, and black teas.

We want to introduce some of their teas in the following segment. We invite you to find your favorite from the rich lineup that Moriuchi Tea Farm offers— to experience the wonderfully rich world of Japanese tea.

▲ The teas available are harvested from farm-managed plantations and finished in-house so customers can enjoy a truly special brew.

Yumesuruga

Born in Shizuoka, this rare variety of tea is characterized by a sweet, lingering aftertaste. Recommended for its ease of brewing, many people enjoy this refreshing variety.

Koushun

This unique blend is perfect for those seeking a distinctive aroma. It presents a diverse bouquet, from the refreshing fragrance of herbs and sweet, fruity notes to the rich, mellow aroma of milk. Among their teas, the Koushun stands out for its exceptional flavor, distinguished from the others.

Sae-Midori

This cultivar has an elegant flavor and is often cultivated for gyokuro production, so it is recommended for those seeking a sleek, refined taste.

Tsuyu-Hikari

Beautiful color, well-balanced flavor, and sweetness are sure to captivate. Serve you a cold brew of tsuyu-hikari in the summer, and You’ll be all over it! says Mr. Moriuchi.

Sofu

With a gorgeous, fruity aroma reminiscent of jasmine, this nutritious tea is abundant in the antioxidant quercetin. This flavonoid has caught the interest of major Japanese beverage companies for use in health products currently available on the market.

Oku-Midori

This tea brews to a vibrant, deep green color. It offers a well-balanced combination of umami and sweetness, with a refreshing, crisp aroma.

When brewed at a slightly lower temperature, it reveals a smooth, mellow palate. At Moriuchi Tea Farm, they’ve found that visitors who try this Okumidori tea are often surprised by its silky texture.

The Japanese Tea Café Experience at Moriuchi Tea Farm (by reservation only)

Moriuchi Tea Farm also provides special programs such as Japanese tea tours and experiences. These popular programs are enjoyed by more than 200 people a year, including tourists from abroad, tea lovers, and old-house lovers.

(The owner and his wife usually engage in farm work, so participation without reservation is impossible. The owner and his wife are unavailable in April and May due to the busy harvest season, but a knowledgeable guide will be available to guide you).

The Japanese Tea Café Experience begins with a plantation tour guided by Masumi Moriuchi, a certified Japanese tea instructor.

After the tour, visitors can taste teas from the Moriuchi Tea Farm in their 150-year-old farmhouse and home. Participants can enjoy a variety of popular teas, including sencha, hojicha, black, genmaicha, and oolong tea.

In summer, visitors can try ice-brewed tea made from award-winning tea leaves, eat tea husks with rock salt and tea seed oil, and occasionally taste valuable hand-picked tea unavailable on the market. In addition, during the ichibancha (first flush)season, visitors can try their hand at picking tea with the skilled tea-picking staff. (For a report on the Japanese tea tour, see the article on the Shizuoka Tea Experience Cycling Tour.)

Interview: Masterful Techniques That Reveal Tea’s Unique Essence. Moriuchi Tea Farm’s Creations Loved Across The World

We spoke with Masumi Moriuchi of Moriuchi Tea Farm.

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The Rich Flavors of Moriuchi Tea Farm: Masterful Blends of Topography and Cultivars

–Please tell us about the Moriuchi Tea Farm.

Moriuchi Tea Farm has produced tea in the Honyama area of Shizuoka City for over 300 years since the Edo period. The current owner, Yoshio Moriuchi, is the ninth generation.

The garden grows more than 14 cultivars (including Yabukita, Koushun, Yumesuruga, and Tsuyu-hikari) and manufactures various teas, from sencha to fermented.

–How are you able to grow so many cultivars?

Taking advantage of the complex topography of the Miwa area within Uchimaki, the farm has established a management method to capitalize on the characteristics of each variety. The tea plantations are surrounded by mountains of various sizes, with flatlands and steep slopes resulting in a diverse variety of sunlight, temperature, humidity, and soil conditions.

By understanding the characteristics of each location and selecting suitable cultivars, we can cultivate multiple tea varieties.

For example, Tsuyu-hikari is a cultivar often grown under cover because it does not require much sunlight (to learn more about covered cultivation, please refer to Yabuzaki-en’s article). Bearing this in mind, we can create a natural covering effect by growing it on slopes that receive less sunlight. We also employ fertilizers, pruning, and other management techniques in these methods.

–I see. Understanding the characteristics of each location in areas with complex topography enables you to cultivate multiple cultivars.

That’s right. Taking advantage of the characteristics of each variety, we manufacture and sell a wide variety of teas at our factory, including sencha, kamairicha, oolong, black, and semi-fermented tea.

Tea Production: Blending Time-Honored Artisan Skills with Modern Technology

This is the National Tea Fair prize-winning regular sencha in the 4 kg category, produced by Moriuchi Tea Farm.

–The tea leaves are beautifully shaped and have a lovely luster.

▲ The tea requires about five hours of continuous rolling.

At Moriuchi Tea Farm, we do not leave all aspects of tea production to machines; instead, we follow a distinct method that combines traditional hand-rolling tea techniques with the sense of tea masters acquired over many years of experience.

–Is it a hand-rolling technique? The world of tea production is very profound.

It’s a tremendously profound world. The tea leaves must be continuously rolled to the ideal point where shape and internal quality are balanced. It requires delicate technique, but also patience.

Uchimaki, where Moriuchi Tea Farm is located, has long been where hand-rolled tea flourished and the backdrop for many excellent tea masters’ activities. Hand-rolling techniques have been passed down from generation to generation and improved daily. The contemporary tea factory is the result of the mechanization of these techniques.

▲ Pushing Moriuchi Tea Farm’s hand-rolling technique to the limit, results in the tea leaves taking on this beautifully elongated shape.

If you want to learn more about hand-rolled tea, please check out our videos on YouTube. (For more information on hand-rolling techniques, please refer to article of Yamahiraen.)

–I see, your exceptional tea is a harmonious blend of the tea master’s skill and intuition, paired with advanced mechanized techniques.

In addition to sencha, the company has been making fermented teas such as black and oolong since 1999.

Fermented Tea from Moriuchi Tea Farm: A Flavor Honored in England, the Home of Tea, Perfected through Authentic Techniques

–I see that you make not only sencha but also black tea and other fermented teas. How did you learn to make fermented tea?

It may not be well known, but postwar Japan was also an exporter of black tea; we learned about its manufacture under technical guidance from experts who taught those techniques then. Our black tea is highly regarded overseas and is exported to England, the home of black tea. The Rare Tea Company also sells our teas in the United Kingdom.

Several years later, we invited an oolong expert from Taiwan for technical guidance, studying oolong tea manufacture diligently. My husband also learned by reading many books on the subject and deepening his knowledge from various perspectives.

Those who want to learn more about tea may want to visit a specialized organization such as a tea research institute, where they hold presentations on the latest research and offer free tea tastings and samples.

▲Moriuchi Tea Farm uses kettles imported from Taiwan to produce oolong tea.

Moriuchi Tea Farm Envisions a Future for Japanese Tea Cherished Worldwide

There are two main types of tea plantations.

The first is the ridged (or arc-shaped) garden, the most common type of tea plantation. The shape allows the tea plants to receive more sunlight, and using machinery enables harvesting higher quantities of tea efficiently.

▲ A ridged garden, pruned in a croissant shape.

The other is a natural garden.

The tea trees are not shaped but allowed to grow freely, straight up towards the sun. Harvesting is done by hand, and skilled tea pickers carefully pick each bud individually. The daily yield is much less than machine-harvested tea, resulting in a considerably higher quality tea.

▲ A natural garden with an inherent covering effect produced by the tea trees.

–Is there a difference in taste between a ridged garden and a natural garden?

The difference is astonishing. If the number of tea buds on a ridged plantation is 100, the number of tea buds on a natural plantation is about 40. This means that the nutrition is concentrated in those 40 buds. Here is a tea from one of our natural gardens. Please try it.

–This is delicious. I have never tasted a tea like this— even in a Japanese tea cafe.

These naturally cultivated, hand-picked teas are delicious, but because of their high unit price, you are unlikely to find them in many Japanese tea cafes.

–There is so much to Japanese tea that most of us don’t know about!

These days, hands-on tea-tasting events are held throughout Shizuoka city. In the past, we participated in an event called Tea and Food Musubu Kai to promote the pairing of tea and food. The event was very popular and fully booked.

Japanese tea experience tours we host at Moriuchi Tea Farm are also very popular and provide an opportunity to experience otherwise unknown aspects of Japanese tea.

–I understand that many visitors from abroad also participate in Japanese tea tours. How do they react?

All of our overseas visitors are delighted with our tea. Some of them make very humorous comments when they drink the tea, such as “I feel energy,” “It is like drinking the water of life,” and “The tea is like silk!” Furthermore, a Canadian YouTuber featured our tea experience on YouTube.

–That is a lovely declaration. A different point of view may also help us notice new charms of Japanese tea.

As creators, we are overjoyed to receive such excellent feedback. It motivates us to continue promoting Japanese tea to the world!

Informe Of Moriuchi Tea Farm

Address	Never visit without a prior appointment.
Website	https://www.moriuchitea.com/
Phone number	81 54 296 01210
E-money and credit cards	For purchase at the farm, only cash is acceptable
Open	Contact Moriuchi Tea Farm
Closed	Contact Moriuchi Tea Farm
Parking lot	Available
access	About 15-minute drive from Shin-Tomei Expressway Shinshizuoka IC

 

Writer	Norikazu Iwamoto
Career	Ochatimes chief editer. Meeting with Vice Governor of Shizuoka prefecture. Judge of Shizuoka 100 tea’s award in 2021~24. Ocha Times link introduced at website of World O-CHA(Tea) Festival 2022, Tea Science Center, The City of Green Tea Shizuoka,  Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

 

English translator	Calfo Joshua
Career	Born and raised in England, living in Japan since 2016. Studying arboriculture in Shizuoka Prefecture whilst operating his landscape business Calfo Forestry. Appreciating the nature of Japan and the culture that places such importance in it.