Gyokuro Shaded Leaf
Gyokuro
Shaded for three weeks and brewed cool, Gyokuro is the most prized of loose-leaf greens. Low and slow at 50°C, it yields a thick, almost broth-like cup brimming with umami and a sweetness that seems impossible for a leaf. A meditative, deliberate tea.
Tasting notes
✦Ships within 48 hours from Yame, Fukuoka. Complimentary gift-wrapping on request.
- Steep
- 50°C · 2 min · 10g
- Infusions
- 3–4 re-steeps
- Shading
- 20 days
The Legend
In 1835, in the workshops of the old Yamamotoyama tea house, a master rolling shaded leaf noticed it had curled into small, glistening beads — and named them gyokuro, “jade dew,” for the drop of morning water they resembled.
Grown almost entirely in shadow, the leaf hoards its sweetness instead of spending it on the sun. Brewed barely warm, it pours thick and savoury, closer to a clear broth than to tea. The growers of Yame in Fukuoka guard the craft to this day, and a single cup asks you to slow down to its pace.
