Gyokuro 'Gokou' - 2022 - EU organic

Mr. Ookawa's family farm and teas made a very positive impression on us in Japan at the time. Friendly people, great teas, beautiful surroundings. We wholeheartedly recommend this tea to everyone because of our personal good experience. 'Ujitawara' - the growing area is beautiful: white egrets in the rice fields, and emerald green tea plants reflected in the water, with a pine forest behind them. This is a special tea in many respects: "from a plant variety (Gokou) from a place (Ujitawara), in fact: from a tea plot that - when we visited for the first time - was harvested right in front of our noses. Sweet, full and long aftertaste, rich in umami. Just what a gyokuro should be!

Packaged at the producer, stored refrigerated, 50 gram package.

The tea garden; the family; kind of:

We visited Ookawa-san's tea garden in Ujitawara for the first time on May 2018, 22. We noted the date, because later - when we tasted the Japanese tea samples from several places at home and selected this tea in a "blind test" - it happened that we were visiting this family in Japan on that very day.

The tea that we finally "blindly" selected from several similar ones was harvested right in front of our noses. That is why this tea is a very personal experience for us... We visited Ookawa-san again in 2019, where we discussed that we would also like to be there and help him in one of the next harvests. The pandemic pulled through our plans in this direction, but one day we will definitely have the opportunity to actively participate in a gyokuro harvest.

This year, this gyokuro was shaded for 25 days before picking. Shaded with the "Tana method" and picked by machine.

By the way, Mr. Ookawa is a young producer who makes his teas together with his parents. Their small factory is mechanized, similar to the Japanese style. It is also clean and tidy. The spinning takes place in 3 phases, which means that the processing is more careful, the cell walls are broken more evenly, which certainly results in a better taste.

Ujitawara is a part of the Uji production area. The humid air of the Uji River can be felt in many places in the hilly countryside.

And 'Gokou' is a very sweet variety bred in 1953, in Kyoto Prefecture, especially for local conditions and shading. This is the main plant variant of many teas entered in competitions.

Mr. Ookawa and his beautiful tea garden, bordering Ujitawara

You can read more about the green tea category in this detailed article.