April 2025 Tea Subscription

Last month, we enjoyed the Hatsutsumi Sencha from Hoshino Seicha En. This month, we will upgrade and enjoy the farm's Gyokuro. 

First, some geography and history of the region the tea comes from. In Fukuoka, the most famous and largest tea producing region is in Yame City (八女市) in the Chikugo area of Fukuoka prefecture in northern Kyushu. As the tea capital of Kyushu, Yame is the 6th largest tea producing region in Japan and is home to around 1,500 growers. The tea field have been nurtured by Yabu River which has flooded repeated throughout history and brought nutrients to the tea region. Further, its daily temperature has a high diurnal range with high day temperatures and cold night temperatures. Fogs and mists form naturally when sun falls, blanketing the tea plants till early morning. The cool moist air prolongs the budding of the tea plant at night and reduces direct sunlight during the day, brewing up the characteristic intense umami and sweetness in Yame tea. For the most part of Yame's history, the tea seeds mainly in circulation were those of "Sencha". About 1904, Gyokuro production began in earnest in Hoshino village (星野村) in Yame city, and spread to the semi-mountainous areas thereafter. Yame traditional gyokuro 'Yame dentou hon gyokuro' (八女伝統本玉露) has the honour of being the first tea in Japan registered under the national Geographical Indication Protection System in 2015, covering Fukuoka city, Kurume city and Yame city. It is a taste born from 500 years of history, and Yame hon gyokuro is the only tea in the gyokuro category in Japan to receive Geographical Indication certification. Ranked first for 21 consecutive years at the Japan National Fair of Tea, this is a recognition of their consistent and excellent quality.

Before the Meiji era, this area used to be called Tsukushi Province (筑紫国) where the north is called Chikuzen (筑前) and the south is called Chikugo (筑後). The Fukuoka region has been inhabited earlier than the rest of Japan since ancient times, given its proximity to Korea and China, and her friendlier climate being at the southern tip of temperate Japan. It was said that the first tea seeds planted in 1191 at Sefuri Mountain (Sefuri Mountain, 1,100 m) located between Fukuoka and Saga prefectures were brought back by the patriarch of Japanese tea ceremony Myōan Eisai (明菴栄西). In 1423, another monk Eirin Shuzui (荣林周瑞) brought back more tea seeds when returning from Zen Buddhist studies in Ling Yan Monastery (灵岩寺) in Suzhou China. He travelled throughout Japan to preach Buddhism and when he reached Yame, he was struck by the resemblance of her beautiful mountains to where he was trained in China. At Kurogimachi Kasahara (黒木町笠原), he built a temple and named it Reiganji Temple (霊巌寺), the same name as the monastery he studied in Suzhou China. He planted tea around the temple which grew well thanks to its excellent environment.

Sencha has been widely cultivated during the Meiji period but was worth little. Yame farmers wanted to create a tea that is superior and experimented with other methods of making tea, e.g. not pruning and allowing the shrub to grow naturally, using shading made of a natural material, etc. Such methods begin to spread, and this new method of cultivation began in earnest mostly in mountainous areas. Called gyokuro in Kanji, it is the same word as the same tea in Chinese (玉露, pronounced Yu4 Lv4), translating to Jade Dew. This name arises from the green hue in its brew, resulting from the shading of the leaves before harvest, and which imparts to it a mellow and rich flavour. Even the leftover tea leaves after brewing are highly prized, and are eaten with ponzu or soy sauce as a delicacy.

In the 1970s, mechanised harvesting was introduced to deal with the increasing demand. Although so, Yame retains the original methods, including harvesting by hand. As such, dentou hon gyokuro was born, 'dentou' meaning traditional and 'hon' meaning root or origin (in urban language, it means 'OG'). Other significant differences include the initiation time for shading, with hon gyokuro being earlier when the buds start to open to become 1 leaf with another half open. Shading is common at 16 days and above for all gyokuro cultivation, but with the shading initiated earlier for hon gyokuro, the umami flavour is better retained and astringency better controlled, on a milder and mellower profile. Hon gyokuro has 95% shading as compared to 90% shading for other gyokuro. Shading is made using Honzu (woven from rice straw and Sumaki) in hon gyokuro, while gyokuro could employ synthetic shades.

Our tea is from Hoshino Seicha En (星野製茶園) located in Hoshino village, and is one of the best recognised tea farms in the entire Japan. Japan tea masters are ranked based on their performance in tea judging competitions, with 10-dan (十段) being the highest rank. Hoshino Seicha En has two 10-dan tea masters -  Shinya Yamaguchi (山口真也) and Yosuke Yamaguchi (山口洋介). Their matcha is endorsed by all the tea lineages and sects since cha-no-yu (茶の湯) inception since mid 16th century. In so saying, their matcha is truly ceremonial. Even their common grade matcha tastes exceptionally refined and complex comparable to or even exceeding other ceremonial grade teas.

We are brewing this tea in our Parchmen Glass Gaiwan, with 3.5g of tea to 120 ml of 60°C distilled water for 1 mins. The dry leaves are needle shape and dark green in colour, without stems or leaf veins. The brew is transparent and jade green in colour, slightly cloudy as it shows it is loaded with the fine hairs from tender leaves. The first impression is that of umami - loaded with theanine, it offers generous seaweed aroma and a chicken soup mouthfeel and taste. The flavour profile is complex, sometimes giving hints of roasted pineapple, other times baked nutty notes of pistachios and roasted walnuts. Being the first harvest of the company's tea fields, it is indeed delicate and smooth, with little astringency even at this low brewing temperature. When it cools, there is even pleasant vibrant acidity, which indicates it is loaded with life giving amino and other acids. We brewed this tea a second time, to slightly more astringency but still umami and pleasant, giving flavour notes of the first brew.


Anji is a county in Huzhou, which is known for its silk industry and its history as one of the birthplace of silk production. Anji is famous for its production of Anji Bai Cha - literally translated to Anji White Tea - which we have carried on our list for a few years. (We are calling it White Tips here to prevent confusion as Anji White Tea is not a true white tea. In fact, it is a green tea. It is so named because of the colours on its leaves during budding. Notably, Anji Bai Cha grows whitish looking tender leaf buds. This visual characteristics follow the tea into the dried and brewed forms as well, teasing the tea drinker on what exactly it is. It is known for their higher levels of theanine as compared to other teas. An amino acid, theanine carried the tea identifier of 'thea'. Discovered in 1949 as a constituent of green tea, it is isolated from Japanese gyokuro leaves in 1950. It is also discovered in 2 other Camellia species -  Camellia japonica and Camellia sasanqua, as well as edible mushroom Boletus badius, although information is limited to a single 1960 French publication authored by Casimir J, , Jadot J, Rendard M.

In the taxonomy of the tea plant, the tea family is named as theaceae, with the root word of 'thea' being the Latin spelling of 'teh' - the Hokkein pronunciation of tea. Usually tea cultivars develop theanine levels of 3-4%. The Anji Bai Cha has 5-7% theanine. As theanine is sweet and umami, you can expect it to be savoury, brothy and smooth without much astringency.

In Zhejiang province, there are two places producing this tea - Ningbo and Anji. It was generally agreed that the Anji teas are more superior in terms of fineness of flavour. Our tea today is grade 1 from Anji. Grade 1 means it is a later harvest, such that the tea leaves have grown longer. The theanine will be lower than Special Grade but still obvious as compared to other teas. It also indicates the less stringent standards in removing stems, oxidised leaves and leaves of non-standard sizes. 

We are brewing this tea in our Parchmen Glass Gaiwan, at 3g to 120 ml of 70°C distilled water, for 30 sec. The brewed leaves turn whitish, with chicken stock as overtone and aroma forward on flowers, seaweed and pepper. The brew has crystalline sugar cane sweetness, and is smooth with medium light body from hot to cold. The vegetal character associated with green tea is not obvious. It can brew twice at the same parameters. 


The last tea of the month is a red tea made from a cultivar traditionally used for wulong tea. Golden Guan Yin is a new cultivar that was created from two other famous cultivars. After 21 years of hybridization experimentation and field trials since 1978, the hybrid finally stabilised and the final stock was finally selected in 1999 after numerous field selections. In the hybridization, the father contributes the pollen to the flower on the mother tree. In Golden Guan Yin, the mother is the famous Tie Guan Yin (铁观音) and the father is Huang Jin Gui (黄金桂), another famous variety in Fujian. This exquisite tea was admitted into the national register of tea in 2002. Genetically, it is closer to Tieguanyin in terms of visual appearance but buds earlier in the middle of March, and ready for picking in early April. As such, it is usually one of the earliest wulong tea to market. When made into a wulong tea, it interestingly follows the half-ball shape of Tieguanyin, which often causes confusion between the two products. Our tea is made into a red tea using this cultivar, following traditional north Fujian red tea method. Our Golden Guan Yin is a wild tea from an abandoned tea farm.   

We are all too familiar with Tie Guan Yin. Let us then talk more about Huang Jin Gui, which is also known as Huang Dan (黄旦) in Fujian. Strictly speaking, Huang Jin Gui is the product name and Huang Dan is the name of variety that makes it. Sometimes it is also known as Eight Immortal's Tea (八仙茶). Like all Chinese teas, there are a few myths on its discovery. One says that in 1860 during the Qing dynasty, a talented lady tea picker by the name of Wang Tan (王淡) got married. As a gift from the lady's mother to her husband's family, she brought back a tea sapling. It also bears the auspicious meaning of resettling in her new home and producing off-springs (落地生根). Two years later during springtime, she noticed that the tea stock started to bud, much earlier than expected from experience back home. After she processed the tea, it produced exceptional flavour. Naturally, the locals name the tea after her. In the local dialect, Wang and Huang (黄) sound the same, and Tan and Dan (棪) sound the same too. This is how Wang Tan tea became Huang Dan tea. After another incident of being lost in translation, the Chinese word also changed and became the final version of Huang Dan (黄旦). 

We are brewing the tea in our Parchmen Glass Gaiwan, using 3.5g of tea leaves to 130 ml of 85℃ distilled water for 60 sec. The dry leaves have a captivating smell of brown spices and dried raisins while the brewed leaves have a smell of malt and roasted seeds, with a hint of savouriness at the back. The brew is golden in colour, sweet and has a vibrant acidity. The sweetness supported by the medium and round body of the tea results in a taste that is similar to drinking a sugary drink from the onset. In the mouth, the aroma slowly changes to a combination of stewed fruits and winter melon, with an elegant bitterness of Chinese medicine. The aftertaste is clean and sweet. This tea can be brewed up to 2 times using the same parameters.

Enjoy your teas of April 2025!

Thank you for coming onboard Parchmen & Co and travel with us to savour our world in a cup!