Oct 2025 Tea Subscription

November 2025 next month, Parchmen & Co will collab with NPO Agriculture Support Team in Saitama to organise a Tocha (闘茶) event at Parched by Parchmen (Ubi). Tocha (闘茶) is a competition or game in which participants compare several types of tea by smell and taste, and attempt to identify their brand name, origin, or quality. In contemporary times, it is also known as "Chato Kabuki (茶歌舞伎)" and is enjoyed as a traditional tea culture. The origins of Tocha can be traced back to the Song dynasty (960-1279). In Japan, it became popular among Zen monks, aristocrats, and samurai from the late Kamakura (鎌倉) period (1192 - 1333) through the Nanboku-chō (南北朝時代) period (1336-1392). Initially, it was a pure tea-tasting game, but as time passed, it took on strong gambling elements, with participants displaying luxurious tea utensils and betting money on the results. This led to it being banned by the Muromachi shogunate (室町幕府) at one point in history. Following this, with the spread of the spirit of wabi-cha (a simple, rustic style of tea ceremony), it evolved into the refined etiquette of the tea ceremony as we know it today. This game is a challenge even for frequent tea drinkers in ancient Japan. In modern day Singapore, we will conduct the tocha using easier rules of matching a 2nd set of unknown teas with a first set of known teas. In anticipation of tocha, we will feature 2 Japanese sencha. 

The first sencha is from Fukuoka. 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 dento 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.

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.

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 about 1,000 years ago. 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.

The tea on feature is a Hatsutsumi sencha, which is a tea done without the traditional reed shading required of gyokuro. It is precisely the delicate flavour notes of this sencha that we can start to understand why Hoshino Seicha En's gyokuro is so prized. Tasting like a gyokuro, the tea reflects the excellent growing environment and the superior tea processing skills of the company. Hatsutsumi in Japanese means the first harvest as it is the first sencha to be made in the farm at the opening of the tea year.

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.

The second sencha is from Saitama, which will be featured in the tocha. In the summer of 2024, Parchmen & Co made a trip to Japan Saitama (埼玉) to visit new tea farms and factories. We were introduced to Sayama (狭山) teas of Saitama during COVID days, when we did a tea event to remain engaged with our customers. A Singaporean friend matchmade us with a Sayama tea group and we did a tocha event using their teas. While many are familiar with Kyoto, Shizuoka and Fukuoka teas, Saitama teas are relatively unknown to most. Of course, we are not referring to the other Saitama, an independently-acting superhero in One Punch Man who dreams of becoming famous. The low profile of Sayama teas may indeed make it look like vying for fame, this cannot be further from the truth domestically. In fact, Japanese agree on the “Three Great Teas of Japan” - 'Shizuoka for colour, Uji (Kyoto) for aroma, Sayama for flavour'. Its international low profile today betrays its glorious past.

Teas at the north of Tokyo are steeped in history. Heian-kyo (平安京) - then-capital and Kyoto today - had been the capital for Japan for over a thousand year. This gave Kyoto teas a natural advantage in prestige and marketability. However, few know that Kawagoe teas (川越茶) emerged earlier than Kyoto Uji (宇治茶) tea by around a century. Then, Kawagoe tea was enjoyed as a matcha (河越抹茶), adopting its name after the same growing area which later changed a Kanji character with the same pronunciation (川 and 河 mean rivers of different scales but are both read as 'kawa' in Japanese.) It was well documented that Kawagoe teas have enjoyed the patronage of the ruling Muromachi (Ashikaga) shogunate during the 14th century.

Situated north of most other tea-growing regions in Japan, the harsh winter in Saitama conditions thicker cold-resistant leaves, allowing higher accumulation of flavour notes - a reason for its popularity. Additionally, Kawagoe's historical role as the supply town for Edo (江戸) (present day Tokyo) earned it the nickname 'Koedo' which means 'Little Edo' (小江戸). During the Edo Period (1603 – 1868), it was one of the early adopters of loose leaf teas after emulating the new tea drinking trend across the East China Sea in China. The Japanese name for this new brewing style confusingly adopted the term 'sencha' (煎茶), which referred to how tea was cooked before Edo era. 

Located 500 km north of the ancient Heian-kyo of the shogunate, Kawagoe held significant cultural, religious and military importance. The magnitude of its standing is exemplified by the decree of the third Tokugawa shogun, Tokugawa Iemitsu (徳川家光), to transplant palace buildings from Edo Castle to Kitain (喜多院) - an important Buddhist temple in Kawagoe - after a fire destroyed most of it in 1638. These relocated structures became the sole surviving buildings of Edo Castle today after the aftermath of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 and World War II.

Adjacent to Kawagoe, Sayama was recently established in 1954 by the merger of a few neighbouring towns. Today, Sayama tea has surpassed its former incarnation as Kawagoe tea in fame, with the main production area in Sayama and neigbouring Iruma City (入間). Such are really modern administrative divisions rather than actual geographical divisions based on historical tea growing areas of Kawagoe tea. During our brief visit to Sayama, we dedicated more time in Takano En (Takano is the family name of the producer and 'en' means tea garden). Every farm we visited has their own tea processing facility, and Takano En is no exception, boosting older structures made of wood. Importantly, the farm employs organic farming techniques, which is rather uncommon in Sayama. The owner is Takano Chamio (髙野茶実夫), who humorously acknowledged that his name sounds amusing but described his birthplace in a tea shop. 

Takano En's green tea is made using the ‘Samaya Kaori' variety (さやまかおり) which translates to 'aroma of Sayama'. Employing the traditional method of Sayama Hiire (さやま火入), it acquires an elegant roasted aroma with a lingering afterflavour. Although Hiire (火入) is an crucial final step common to all Japanese green tea production, Sayama Hiire employs a higher temperature to cater to the thicker Sayama tea leaves. Takano En's wakoucha (和红茶, Japanese red tea) is crafted using 'Yutaka Midori' variety (ゆたかみどり) which translates to 'luscious green'. This variety is well-suited for red tea due to its intense sweetness. Both varieties have low astringency and bitterness. [The 'wa' in 'wakoucha' refers to the major Japanese ethnic group of the Yamato (大和).]

We are brewing both teas in our Parchmen Glass Gaiwan. For the sencha, we are using 3g of tea leaves to 130 ml of 75℃ distilled water for 35 sec. The dry leaves are dark green in colour and appears torn and with tea fanning. This is the characteristic of Japanese teas due to the employment of heavy machines in repeated steps. The brewed leaves smell of seaweed and nuts, reminding one of Sayama Hiire. The tea is greenish in colour and not entirely transparent like Chinese tea due to presence of tea fanning. The flavour is fresh, seaweedy and has a clear aroma of hazelnut, with a smooth mouthfeel, low bitterness and low astringency. The afterflavour lingers on the nose. It can be brewed twice. For the red tea, the leaves look broad and short, with reddish or golden tips. The brewed leaves smell sweet with hints of fruits. The tea colour is bright red, and the flavour is smooth, sweet and dominated by peach, lemon and plum aroma, extending to its afterflavour. The tea is bright, with low bitterness and low astringency. The second brew retains the colour and flavour, while the third brew becomes a lighter tone of red with reduced flavour. It is best enjoyed in two brews.

Our third tea this month is the famous Duck Shit wulong tea, from our usual Wu Dong Mountain (乌岽山) farm which produces our ever-popular Honey Orchid. Teas from Phoenix Mountain (凤凰山) are now known as Fenghuang Dancong teas, literally Phoenix (Mountain) single bush (凤凰单丛) teas. The biodiversity of the mountains and the micro-regions created by the different spurs of the range have allowed the natural conditions for the wild tea trees to crossbreed with other plants, developing differences in physical appearances as well as flavour characteristics. Through selection in the last few decades and supported by the maturity of cloning techniques, cultivars with differentiated aroma types were identified and mother trees were isolated. Cloning was done repeatedly to achieve stability in the cultivar, which formed the spectrum of aroma types in the Phoenix teas we know today. Since the cultivars were all cloned from selected single mother bushes, the term Dancong continue to apply.

One have probably heard of civet cat coffee, and the range of similar products like monkey coffee, elephant coffee, etc. Such coffees are indeed collected from the excrement of these animals. In the same light, Duck Shit wulong tea's extraordinary name often raises eyebrows for the uninitiated, although its growing fame now overruns people's surprise of its name. (Another shocking tea is Cockroach's Wings.) The mother tree stands at Feng Xi Township Kang Tou Village (凤溪坪坑头村), at around 800m on the slopes of Mountain Wu Dong, on the southeast direction from the landmark of Phoenix Sky Lake (凤凰天池). However, this is not its original location, having been transplanted from Li Zi Ping Village (李仔坪村) south of Wu Dong Village (乌岽村) on the same contour in the 1920s. Planted on "duck shit clay" which in fact is chalky yellow clay resembling duck shit, it gradually took on that name. The more romantic version of the name's origin was the deliberate masking of the true commercial value of the tea by the discoverer and making the profits alone without his neighbours' knowledge. The secret was out before long, and now it is widely planted in the region. With its growing fame, the more proper name of Honeysuckle Aroma (银花香) was given in 2014 exactly owing to its aroma resembling intense honeysuckle blossom. Our tea is from Tian Zhu Keng (甜竹坑), the tea master's family farm, at 800m elevation, and the trees are around 45 years old. His company is Pheonix Tea Estates (凤凰茶厂).

We are brewing the tea using gongfu style in an Authority zisha teapot. With 3 gm of tea, we are using 120ml of 88-90°C distilled water and keeping each steep at 30 sec. The brewed leaves smell of baked walnuts and roasted barley, and it curiously reminded us of the energy drink Ovaltine. The brew is pale yellow. On bringing the tea cup to the mouth, you will appreciate the reason why it is named 'Honeysuckle" - honey and honeysuckle notes rush to the nose. A quenching tea, it is salivating and has little bitterness or astringency. The immediate impression is of roasted barley and honey, with a hint of spices, and ending with honeysuckle. A gentle and pleasant tea, it can be rebrewed one more time before astringency is obvious.

Enjoy your teas of Oct 2025!

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