Uenohara Seichaen

On a plateau 350 meters above sea level in Saza (northern Nagasaki), a more than 70-year-old terraced tea plantation is cultivated by Kōji Uenohara (上ノ原 宏二) to make kamairicha, a pan-fired green tea. It is characterised by a fragrance called kamaka (”wok fragrance”), making a tea that is nuttier and warmer in feeling than steamed green tea.

At the time Uenohara’s farm was first founded by Kōji’s grandfather Kisuke Uenohara, who started cultivating the tea fields in 1960, all tea producers in Nagasaki focused on the production of kamairicha.

In the 1970s, with Japan’s booming economy, there was a high consumer demand for the fresh, grassy flavours of steamed tea (like sencha), with consequently high prices offered on the market for teas that had been steamed. Using steaming to process teas also allowed farmers to upscale production with more efficiency and consistency in quality. These factors led to a big transition in which nearly all tea farmers in Nagasaki Prefecture switched from pan-fired to steamed tea processing. Somehow, instead of switching to sencha production, the farmers in Nagasaki and neighbouring prefecture Saga chose to produce mainly tamaryokucha: a steamed green tea that is curly shaped, instead of the characteristic needle shape of sencha.

For the Uenohara family, having just invested in new pan-firing machines and unable to afford a new steaming machine, they were left out of the steaming processing trend—inadvertently leading to them being one of the very few tea farmers in Nagasaki Prefecture to maintain the traditional kamairicha production method.

Now, Uenohara Kōji continues to produce kamairicha, still using the trusted old (and beautiful!) red-brick pan-firing machines that his father invested in just before the 1970s. Uenohara says: “I want as many people as possible to know the unique charm of kamairicha, which is different from sencha”. Currently less than 0.3% of all of Japanese tea production is kamairicha.

Uenohara is one of the very few farmers in Nagasaki Prefecture who practice shizensaibai, or ‘natural cultivation’. Uenohara has worked to eliminate the use of pesticides in his fields, and now grows completely pesticide- and fertiliser-free. Although Uenohara struggled at first to have a good harvest with all natural cultivation, the environment of his fields has since improved and the taste of the tea has stabilised. “Even if you don’t give pesticides to the tea tree, even if you don’t give fertiliser,“ says Uenohara, “you can sprout properly even if it’s natural, and you can make delicious tea”.

Uenohara clearly makes his choices based on a strong personal philosophy about nature and health. Alongside Uenohara’s kamairicha, he has been producing Gabaron kamairicha for over 30 years, and additionally studied about Chinese medicinal herbs in order to learn how to create herbal blends for health purposes.

He is very warm and welcoming, though a somewhat shy and humble character, who sometimes feels apologetic that his teas are so different from the current Nagasaki ‘standard’ steamed tamaryokucha.

We are extremely happy to work with Uenohara and share his wonderful gentle kamairicha teas that match Uenohara’s own gentle nature. His teas give a glimpse into what tea used to be like in Nagasaki more than 50 years ago, and we hope that through sharing Uenohara’s teas and giving him frequent positive feedback (showing him that people all over the world love his teas!), we can make him more proud of the unique teas he creates.