"EN" - Tea Farm

Even though all the field are belonging to our farm, each of them has its own Terroir and character.
We understand these differences and make use of  them to find ideal and customized cultivation method for each field respectively.

"TSUMU" -
Hand-Picking of Tea Leaves

In the most parts of our farms, new leaves are hand-picked from tea trees by our pickers called "Ocha-Tsumi-San".

Currently, even though in Kyoto, the number of tea farms is becoming less and less where tea leaves are picked by Ocha-Tsumi's hand.

"HAKARU" - Weighing

After harvesting, the picked tea leaves in the baskets (called "Kago") are gathered for weighing.

This scenery is quite typical, but it can be seen only at the tea farms with hand-harvesting.

"MUSU" - Steaming

"Tencha" is a kind of steamed green tea. For making Matcha, tea leaves are steamed and then powdered, so having good quality Tencha is essential for making good Matcha.

The process "steaming" is very important for making Tencha and the word "steaming" doesn't mean that the tea leaves are "just steamed".

People think that it's so easy and fast to steam the new leaves because they are so soft and their thickness is only 1 to 2mm in average. But, it is not so. To make better Tencha, the points are very important, how deep into their center the tea leaves are to be steamed and how to steam them avoiding excess water droplets on their surface. Quite high level of technique is to be requested to fulfill these requirements.

"KAWAKASU" - Drying

After steaming, the tea leaves should be dried and several alternative methods can be selected how to dry. Of course, we can put the leaves simply on the conveyor and dry them with the direct air flow. But once steamed, leaves can become sticky and stick each other or lump up if they were just put and dried on the conveyor.

So, we make air flow with leaves from the steamer to the big wire-mesh cage with which the leaves can be blown into the cage, jump up and down freely and be dried well by wind while jumping in the cage. We think this method can be quite ideal to secure its quality.

"ABURU" - Roasting

The conveyer has 4 layers moving in the roaster.

The temperature inside the roaster is not equal but quite various from points to points, around 200 C degrees at the highest point, but at the lowest point near to 60 C degrees. So it's very difficult but important for us to control the pitch of moving of these 4 layers so that all the leaves can be dried averagely and completely to the core.

"KONASU" - Comminuting

Konasu is an important and responsible step to make the leaves averagely in piece by using a sieve. How to handle the leaves and how to touch and put them toward the mesh, these points can decide the quality of the Tencha directly.

If the leaves could be crushed too fine at this step, the color of Tencha would become whitish and it's a sign for downgrade in taste. The most ideal utensils is a sieve made from bamboo to control the size of Tencha leaves and pitch of our touch. But recently we are tending to use sieves with metal-mesh instead of the one with bamboo mesh.

"ERABU" - Selecting

It's quite normal for our customers to imagine that we remove old or any kinds of unqualified leaves prior to the powdering process. But they could be so surprised to hear that we also de-vein from the leaves before powdering. We, at "Magouemon", use only the soft and fine parts of tea leaves for making Matcha. Moreover, to make tea for contests-use, we remove even more strictly any blackened (not perfectly green) and/or twisted (not perfectly straight) leaves.

"TSUBO(-NI-IRERU)" - Storing - Tea leaf jar

In the Edo-period, Tencha was put into a "Chatsubo (tea urn)" and merchandised as per the tea urns. Sellers put the "Tencha-Bukuro (bags for Tencha) for "Koicha (thick tea)" in the middle of a tea urn and put Tencha for "Usucha (thin tea)" around the "Tencha-Bukuro" for dispatching. This system doesn't exist now, just an old tradition.

"MICHI" - Delivering

Tea had been packed into Chatsubo (tea leaf jars), set on  palanquins and delivered to the Shogun (General) at the Edo Castle(or called Chiyoda Castle) or each Busho (Japanese Military Commanders) for over 230 years. This ceremony was done during the Edo Period, so it doesn't exist nowadays, just a historical topic.

"HIKU" - Stone-Milling

Grounded Tencha in a mill is called Matcha and Matcha can be grounded in quite fine and small particles with the stone mills.

Some merchandisers say, the heavier the weight of a stone mill is, the better condition of Matcha we can expect for milling.

"MATSU" - Powder

This is the traditional manufacturing process for producing "Uji-cha" with its around 800-year-history. Our "Tencha" can be produced as the "Kyo-Matcha / high grade Matcha from Kyoto" only through this process.