Tea Unites People

Yoshihiro's family has grown tea in Kyotanabe, Kyoto, for four generations, learning much of their craft under Juichi Yamashita, a gyokuro master decorated with Japan's Medal with Purple Ribbon, who taught them that exceptional tea can never be standardized. Every field carries its own soil, its own light, its own season, and a producer's task is to read each one and respond to it with care. One planting on the family's land makes the point on its own: left unreplanted for over a hundred years, its bushes have cross-pollinated naturally into a character no other field could reproduce.

Responding to the Land

That lesson now shapes how Yoshihiro runs Dejima-en. He tends several fields and treats each on its own terms, adjusting soil preparation, shading, and harvest timing field by field, then finishing much of the work by hand using the rolling technique passed down from Yamashita. Because most of what Dejima-en grows is bound for buyers overseas, Yoshihiro holds it to standards beyond Japan's own: pesticide residues are tested against US limits, cultivars are verified through annual lab analysis, and fertilizer choices are guided by microbial research aimed at reducing chemical inputs further still.

Single Field, Single Cultivar

Rather than blending different cultivars together, Yoshihiro focuses on single-origin, single-cultivar tencha, samidori, okumidori, and saemidori among them, so that each tea can speak with its own voice instead of being smoothed into a uniform blend. Over the years, that discipline has earned the trust of Michelin-starred restaurants, established ryotei, and pastry houses across Japan; his tea appears in ISSENKA's matcha terrine and a signature matcha cocktail at a mixology bar in Ginza, and once brought him to Hawaii to lecture on Japanese tea.

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