Keita Watanabe and his family already started with shading their first tea garden parcels on the little island Yakushima in the very south of Japan, while in other parts of Japan snow was falling just some hours ago.
Keita and Mankichi Watanabe produce mainly two kinds of shincha for us, which go on the way to Europe. One is the Watanabe Kabuse Shincha, which is characterized by the shading of the tea bushes before harvest and by a quite gentle final heating (just a very little stronger heated than the Morimoto Shincha). The second one is a very unique shincha, namely the Shincha Ryo. The Shincha Ryo is not finally heated at all, which is why it falls in the category of an aracha shincha. Since it has a very beautiful sweetness and a lot of Umami, it is a very elegant tea to enjoy with a fresh and pure taste, even if it was not finally heated.