Uji Matcha in 2026: Tradition, Craft, and Hand Plucked Samidori

When we first visited Uji in 2024 to find our Matcha Ceremonial Grade Uji Samidori Hand Plucked, we met a father and son-in-law quietly doing things the hard way. Six generations of farming behind them, and still hand plucking. Organic cultivation. A single cultivar, Samidori, chosen not for convenience but for what it gives in the cup. At a time when demand for matcha was already accelerating, they continue to move in the opposite direction from the industry around them. And they genuinely love what they do.

One of the things that stayed with us from 2024 was watching new plants go in. Returning now, two years on, and seeing how they have taken to the land has a particular satisfaction to it. These are long timelines. The family is mid-way through a full transition to organic certification, a process that in Japan demands five years of sustained commitment before a single stamp is earned. 

The shaded gardens remain one of the defining images of Uji, and this visit the straw roofing was going up, the traditional covering that slows light and coaxes the leaf toward deeper colour and sweetness. It is painstaking, seasonal work, and watching it happen gives a clear sense of where the character of these teas actually comes from.

Markus has been building this relationship since that first visit, and what has changed most noticeably is the nature of the conversations. Less transactional, more collaborative. Cultivars, harvest conditions, the subtle differences between seasons, where the market is heading and what that means for producers who have chosen not to follow it. These are the exchanges that make it possible to stand behind a tea with genuine confidence.

Samidori remains at the heart of what this family produces. They chose it for good reasons: it is more forgiving to pluck than most cultivars, and it gives in return a vivid, saturated colour and a sweetness that is immediately recognisable in the cup. But forgiving is relative. For our hand-plucked Platinum Collection, forty pluckers work the gardens across a full month, six in the morning until six at night, in shifts. The leaf is selected by hand at every stage. It is the kind of effort that only makes sense if you believe the result is worth protecting, and after six generations, this family clearly does.

The name carries its own poetry. Samidori is an old Japanese word for the first month of the lunar calendar, the month of fresh green, a seasonal word used in the tea ceremony tradition. 

The result is our Matcha Ceremonial Grade Uji Samidori Hand Plucked, part of the Platinum Collection.

The challenges facing Uji today are not the same as a decade ago. Demand has never been higher. Across Japan, more gardens are converting from Sencha to Tencha production to meet that demand, and new processing facilities continue to appear. Against all of that, producers like these continue to show that quality is not a product of scale. It is a product of patience, and of people who have decided what they care about.

Returning to Uji this year was a reminder that the most remarkable teas are rarely the result of scale. They are the result of patience, experience, and people willing to dedicate themselves to doing things properly.

As demand for Matcha continues to grow around the world, we believe these qualities matter more than ever. We are very pleased to continue sharing the work of this family through our Platinum Collection.