Dobashien Tea #08: Kakegawa Series: Single Cultivar Sencha, Asatsuyu 煎茶 朝露 Dobashien Tea Company

Sencha Asatsuyu is a single cultivar green tea made from Shizuoka prefecture’s asatsuyu cultivar, famous for naturally providing a gyokuro-like taste profile filled with umami richness. It has a mellow sweetness and is often utilised for making high-quality tea.

Of course, one can enjoy this tea hot but the Dobashien Tea Company also recommends to try it cold-steeped during the warmer seasons. When it is cold-steeped, one may be pleasantly surprised at how delicious this tea is, without much/any bitterness. If you do enjoy having a bit of bitterness in your tea, it is recommended to steep the tea with hot water and then to add ice to the tea. Please enjoy this tea in many ways! 

About Production

The most commonly drunk of all teas in Japan, sencha tea is made from the leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant. After they are picked, the leaves are take immediately to to the factory for steaming, rolling, and drying.

In Japan, a high level of skill necessary to create fine sencha. Though the processing of the leaves is entirely mechanized, the machines utilized are built to imitate the handrolling process that turns leaves into fine sencha needles. So, our tea meisters study the handrolling process in order to gain a better understanding and control over the machines used to produce professional-level sencha tea leaves.

From there, our award-winning master blenders taste teas from different farms, filter out stems and dust, sort the leaves by size and gradation, and combine the leaves to create the perfect sencha.

Product Info

• Cultivar: Asatsuyu
• Harvest: Spring
• Region: Kakegawa, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan

Vendor Info

• Name: Dobashien Tea Company
• Type: Merchant & manufacturer
• Location: 3-17-8 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-0052

In 1892, Dobashien’s founder Tetsugoro Dobashi established a small tea shop in a quiet residential district on the outskirts of Tokyo. As the city expanded, the area known as Akasaka-Mitsuke became one of the city’s elite districts with ryotei, luxury Japanese restaurants, hosting meetings between powerful politicians. At these ryotei, only the best tea leaves from Shizuoka and other parts of Japan are served.