Meet the teas
All from the same hands, the same workshop, season after season.
Matcha
Our most loved tea. Sweet and smooth, with none of the bitterness that turns people away.
Gyokuro
Our signature, and the most patient tea we make. Deep, rounded, and quietly remarkable.
Sencha
Bright, grassy, and refreshing. The tea Japan drinks every day.
All Tea
Genmaicha, houjicha, karigane, and everything else the workshop makes, in one place.
Three generations on the same Kyotanabe soil
We began as Fugenji Plantations, tea farmers supplying fine leaf to other houses. In 1970, after our gyokuro took the nation’s highest prize a second time, we started selling under our own name, Maiko no Cha. Nothing here is rushed. The tea tells us when it is ready, and we listen.
A standard the nation has honoured
Our signature gyokuro is the work of the Yamashita family of Kyotanabe, master growers whose craft passes from grandfather to grandson.
Weeks from harvest, not months
Most Japanese tea sold in the West spends months in sea freight and warehouse storage before it is brewed. Ours does not. Every order leaves our Kyotanabe workshop and flies from Japan to your door, so you taste the harvest while it is still young and bright.
Grown and finished under one roof
Selected, steamed, and blended at our own workshop in Kyotanabe.
Packed in small batches
Sealed at the source so the leaf keeps the green of the field.
By air, not by sea
Your tea boards a plane in Japan. No warehouses in between.
In their words
“In the past, I found matcha to be bitter and harsh. Maiko’s matcha was sweet and not bitter at all.”
“Everything was perfectly wrapped, and it smells so delicious that I cannot wait to brew another cup tomorrow morning.”
“This is the best green tea I have ever tried.”
Tea news, straight from Kyotanabe
Seasonal harvests, brewing notes, and word from the house, a few times a year.
For cafes and retailers, we work directly with a small number of partners. Wholesale enquiries: [email protected]