Two origins, one year apart
Both accounts are on the government record. Neither is a document; both are traditions the ministry repeats without adjudicating between them.
| Claim | Who | Where |
|---|---|---|
| about 1,200 years ago | Saicho | Seed from Tang China, sown near Hiyoshi Taisha at the foot of Mount Hiei — Shiga |
| 806 | Kukai | Seed from Tang China, sown at Buryu-ji in Uda — Nara |
MAFF, guide to regional tea areas; MAFF Kinki Regional Agricultural Administration Office; Nara Prefecture.
Two monks, the same journey, the same decade, a hundred kilometres apart. I am not going to declare a winner, and I would be suspicious of anyone who did. What matters for a reader is simply that "the oldest tea in Japan" is not one place.
When two regions both hold the earliest date, the date has stopped being a fact and started being a claim. That is worth knowing before you pay for it.
One city holds almost all of it
Shiga is not a large tea prefecture, and what it has is concentrated to an unusual degree.
| Shiga | |
|---|---|
| Share of the prefecture's tea grown in Koka | about 90% |
| Growing areas within Koka | Asamiya (Shigaraki) · Tsuchiyama |
| Asamiya elevation | above 400 m |
Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries; MAFF Kinki Regional Agricultural Administration Office.
Asamiya is counted among Japan's five great tea names by the prefecture's own tea body. It sits on sloping ground where mist collects and the swing between day and night temperature is wide — the conditions that keep a leaf growing slowly.
Tsuchiyama is doing something different. Koka declared itself an organic village, and the largest grower there has moved into organic cultivation, export, and tencha — installing a processing plant for it. At Asamiya, growers plant okumidori, a cultivar used for the same leaf.
So this is a matcha region, and a recent one in that respect. The oldest tea land in the country is putting in new tencha lines.
The border
Asamiya lies on the boundary between Shiga and Kyoto. Wazuka, which grows more than half of Kyoto's tencha, is on the other side of the same hills.
And the Uji definition permits leaf from Shiga.
Under the 2004 rule, Uji tea may be made from leaf grown in Kyoto, Nara, Shiga or Mie, refined by a Kyoto company inside Kyoto. The proportions are not published.
I want to be careful here, because the temptation is to write a sentence I cannot support. I do not know where Asamiya's leaf is sold. No figures are published, and I have not interviewed the growers. What is on the record is that the boundary runs through these hills, that the rule reaches across it, and that one side of the line is a word everybody abroad recognises while the other is not.
A district of Shigaraki, the town better known abroad for its pottery — the raccoon-dog figures outside restaurants are Shigaraki ware. The same hills produce both.
The four prefectures, complete
Eight pages ago I quoted a rule and did not know what to do with it. Here is the whole of it now.
| The four prefectures in the Uji definition | What it is known for at home |
|---|---|
| Kyoto | The name itself. Wazuka grows 52% of the prefecture's tencha |
| Mie | 74% of Japan's gyokuro, 63% of its kabusecha |
| Nara | Eight district names folded into Yamato-cha |
| Shiga | Where tea is said to have started |
Three of the four are barely visible outside Japan. That is not a scandal — the rule is public, and it exists because Kyoto could not supply enough leaf on its own. But it does mean that "Uji" on a tin is a finishing address, and that three prefectures stand behind it without being named.
What this means when you buy
Asamiya and Tsuchiyama are the two names to know. If a seller says Shiga, it almost certainly means Koka.
Treat "the oldest in Japan" as a claim, not a specification. It tells you nothing about the leaf in front of you. The elevation, the cultivar and the shading do.
Shiga tencha exists and is new. If you find it, you are drinking something the region has only recently started making at scale.
→ The rest of this series: Uji, Nishio, Mori, Yame, Kagoshima, Ise and Nara.
What I take from eight regions
I set out to answer one question: what does a place name on Japanese tea actually promise? Eight answers later, the honest summary is that it promises eight different things.
| Name | What it guarantees |
|---|---|
| Uji | Finished in Kyoto. Leaf may come from four prefectures |
| Nishio no Matcha | Grown, processed and milled in two cities |
| Mori no Cha | Nothing — no registration exists |
| Yame Dento Hon Gyokuro | A written method, protected nationally |
| Chirancha | One city, one name since 2017 |
| Ise-cha | Mie. Registered, and largely unheard of |
| Yamato-cha | Nara. Eight districts under one word |
| Asamiya · Tsuchiyama | Two districts of one city in Shiga |
Not one of these names is dishonest. Each was written by different people, at a different time, to hold a different thing together — and almost all of the writing happened in the last hundred years, on top of tea that goes back twelve.
So the question to carry into a shop is not "is this real Uji?" It is "what is this name being used to say?" Sometimes it answers where the leaf grew. Sometimes only where it was finished. Sometimes, as here, it says nothing at all about a place that has been growing tea since before Kyoto was the capital.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Shiga tea grown?
About 90 percent of it in Koka, which holds two areas: Asamiya in Shigaraki, and Tsuchiyama.
Is Asamiya the oldest tea region in Japan?
It is described that way on the government record, dating to seed brought back by Saicho about twelve hundred years ago. Nara claims 806. Both are traditions.
Does Shiga make matcha?
Yes. Okumidori for tencha is planted at Asamiya, and Tsuchiyama has installed a tencha processing plant.
Can Shiga tea be sold as Uji tea?
Yes. The definition permits leaf from Kyoto, Nara, Shiga or Mie, refined by a Kyoto company in Kyoto.
What is Asamiya tea like?
Grown above 400 metres on sloping, misty ground. Counted among Japan’s five great tea names by the prefecture’s tea body.
Sources: Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, guide to regional tea areas; MAFF Kinki Regional Agricultural Administration Office; Shiga Prefectural Tea Industry Council; Kyoto Prefectural Tea Industry Council.
