In 1911, the Sung dynasties, Eisai who was a master of Zen brought back tea seeds to Japanese from China and taught Japanese people about matcha tea ceremony technique. In1207, saint Myoue in Madarao kozanji temple, Kyoto sowed the seeds inherited from Eisai in the field of Uji, which was that the origin of Uji tea. In Muromachi period, the Ashikaga shogunate encouraged the people to grow Uji tea, which spread the brand name and how wonderful Uji tea is.

Uji tea is the Japanese traditional tea that produced in the south of Kyoto. And also Uji tea is defined as that 100 percent of tea leaves are produced in Kyoto. Additionally, the following tea also can be called Uji tea. It is that over 50 percent of the tea leaves is produced in Kyoto and blended with the tea leaves produced in Shiga, Nara, and Mie of Kansai region.

Shizuoka tea from Shizuoka in Kanto region and Yame tea from Fukuoka in Kyushu region also taste good, but the teas mixing with tea leaves from other areas can not be called “Uji tea”. Are you wondering why I mention about it? The Uji tea brand is really high-impact even though that tea is produced in small quantities. Therefore, fake brand-name products targeted at foreigners have increased. There are some bad people who disguise the tea from different area as Uji tea because the people who are good on geography of Japan are very few in other countries.

Since I was born in Uji, I consider I have to fight against the sad fact. “Matsusaka Suishoudo” which provides us at Akiba Mart with the Uji tea is the real Uji tea commission agent.  We are proudly introducing the real Uji tea to customer in the world through Akiba Mart.
Honestly, the price is far from cheap…. however, it is the real Uji tea I would like you to drink!!!  Please try it at Akiba Mart!!!

Genuine Uji Matcha Tea
Genuine Uji Gyokuro Tea
Genuine Uji Sencha Tea

The following picture is major production areas of Japanese tea for reference.

Major Japanese Tea Production Areas

High-quality Japanese tea like Gyokuro, these tea leaves are grown under the screen to prevent exposing to sunbeam. This is because sunbeam will make tannin, which is the source of astringency. So gyokuro itself has less tannin, less astringency. Although, if you use boiling water to prepare Gyokuro, tannin will be extacted from the leaf. This is the reason that you should NOT use too hot water for Gyokuro. Proper temperature of the hot water for Gyokuro will be around 60 degrees Celcius, however more lower temperature will be better if you don’t want to extract tannin at all.

Then what is the lowest temperature water for Gyokuro? This question is same as asking “What is the lowest temperature of water?”. Yes, its zero degrees Celcius

So, I tried ice extraction. It’s so simple.

Put 4 grams of Gyokuro on a saucer (believe or not, tea pot is better! lol), and put couple of ices on the leaf. That’s it!

Wait patiently until the ices melt down. Move extracted tea to a cup and have a sip. You must be surprized by the difference from the taste of extracting Gyokuro with hot water.

Very very sweet like candy and completely no astringency. I recommend that you try this with Gyokuro. It’s so cool!

Since caffeine has a stimulant effect to get the brain to fire more efficiently, caffeine is useful for keeping awake.As naming of caffeine came from coffee,
coffee is  best known as caffeinated drink. But actually  red tea has caffeine much than coffee.

Japanese green tea contains caffeine too. Sencha has about one-half of the caffeine contained in coffee. Gyokuro has about 4 times of the caffeine  contained in coffee! Unlike in coffee, the caffeine in Japanese green tea act gently as the stimulant. Because theanine contained in Japanese green tea inhibit the stimulant action of the caffeine. Therefore, it may be said that Japanese green tea has a optimum stimulant effect.

If you drink a cup of Japanese green tea every morning, you have a lot of energy.

Table.Caffeine content of beverages