Japanese Tea Deserves to Be Known Beyond Matcha

Elodie discovered the world of Japanese tea while working in Shizuoka. When she returned home to Rennes, France, in 2020, she noticed how narrow the picture had become there: for most people, Japanese tea began and ended with matcha, while sencha, genmaicha, and the rest of the country's tea traditions remained largely unknown.

Building Chanokazé

To close that gap, she founded Chanokazé, an online platform built around small producers based in Shizuoka. Working directly with them, she offers a wider range of Japanese tea than most French buyers had encountered before: matcha alongside sencha, genmaicha, oolong-cha, and more. Traceability sits at the center of the project. Rather than chasing short-lived trends, Chanokazé is built around teas that respect traditional craftsmanship, answering a demand she sees growing among French consumers: knowing exactly where their tea comes from.

A Scene in the Mountains

One memory from her most recent trip to Japan has stayed with her. In the middle of an unusually hot summer, she watched elderly producers climb steep slopes in the tea-growing mountains, carrying heavy harvesting equipment by hand. It was a scene that moved her, both for its physical difficulty and for the quiet determination of producers who kept working despite their age.

That moment points to a challenge facing the wider industry: an aging generation of tea producers with few successors behind them. Volunteer groups sometimes step in to help with the harvest, but that support shifts unpredictably from year to year. Beyond the fields themselves, small farms also face real logistical and commercial hurdles in reaching buyers at all.

Introducing Japanese Tea to France

It's this landscape that Chanokazé works within: introducing small-producer Japanese tea to a French audience that increasingly wants to know where its tea comes from, and who grew it. Chanokazé regularly takes part in tea events across France to share that range and depth with a wider public.