Cup of Coffee- Matcha Iced

This is the motto of the producers behind MATCHA SONOGI, a blended matcha from a cooperative of six tea farmers overlooking Ōmura Bay in Higashisonogi, Nagasaki prefecture, Japan. The matcha is one cultivar—yabukita, the gold standard in matcha production—but from six different lots of yabukita tea plants, all planted, tended, plucked, and processed with the distinct styling of each farmer. The matcha is shaded 21 days and stone-milled on-site, per "ceremonial" standards (a mostly arbitrary designation). 

This lot both defies and embraces an old norm in matcha production—that matcha is made of tencha from multiple farms, then finished and blended by skilled producers at regional milling factories. MATCHA SONOGI is indeed blended from multiple lots of tencha; but the farmers share a plot of land and produce their teas from start to finish on-site, collaborating on the cultivation, shading, harvest, and processing from planting to finished tea. Each producer approaches their tencha with a unique perspective on tea making. The result is a wholly unique "single-origin" matcha.

notes — mizuna | anko | brothy

nomenclature — Sonogi (彼杵)

style — shaded 21 days & stone-milled

cultivar — yabukita

region — Higashisonogi, Nagasaki, Japan

locale — Sonogi tea cooperative

producer — [see above]

vintage — spring '20