Grown organically in the mountainous Kirishima area of Kagoshima Prefecture. Lightly steamed, organic Kirishima Zairai sencha has a light yellow green color to it, medium body, and rather unique taste and aroma due to it's high iron content.  Zairai means "native" in Japanese and refers to the fact that this tea is from no known modern cultivar and is a close derivitive of the original tea plants imported into Japan from China in the 14th century. Since it is "wild" and grown from seed instead of cloning, there is quite a lot of variation between individual plants which gives the leaf a non-uniform leaf structure and charactaristics of a blend. Although it is considered a hardier plant to culitviate, the lack of leaf conformity, in addition to lower yield than recent clones does not encourage growers to grow it means you will not come across this unique tea often.

Very delicious, here's your chance to experience a green tea with characteristics of the teas of old Japan. As with all of our loose leaf green teas, packaged in nitrogen flushed packaging.

Available in 100 gram packages