Our Tea-Making Process
Crafting Our Tea
A unique blend inherited from a master of tea tasting.
All matcha and sencha sold at Nakamura Chaho are original blends. From the Edo to Meiji periods, a game called "Tocha," where participants distinguished teas from around the country by taste, was popular, and the first generation owner, Suekichi, was a master of it. Nakamura Chaho has inherited and carefully preserved this unique Japanese tea blending technique from its founder.
To deliver the same great taste every time.
Nakamura Chaho's teas are characterized by a distinct "flavor" for each brand. Every year, during the new tea season, two cup tasters evaluate numerous samples, discerning the taste, aroma, and color of the tea leaves for that year. They then procure the necessary tea leaves to blend all brands, ensuring the taste remains consistent with the previous year. A palpable tension fills the manufacturing plant during the new tea season each year, driven by the sole desire for customers to "enjoy the unchanging taste, always."
We have tea plantations across the country, so we can provide a stable supply of tea.
Matsue City in Shimane Prefecture, where Nakamura Chaho is located, is a tea-consuming region where tea ceremony culture has long been rooted in the lives of ordinary people. However, tea leaf production is low, so the supply from within the prefecture alone cannot meet the demand. For this reason, Nakamura Chaho has contracted tea farmers across Japan. This allows us to consistently deliver high-quality tea, even in the event of tea leaf shortages due to climate change.
Exceptional in both aroma and taste: freshly ground matcha made with 40 stone mills.
Suekichi Nakamura, the first-generation head of the family, was also an inventor. In 1913, he invented Japan's first electric stone mill specifically for grinding matcha. People in Shimane Prefecture habitually enjoy matcha casually, and we have strived to deliver freshly ground matcha to as many people as possible to this day. Nakamura Chaho's matcha factory, boasting 40 electric stone mills, has been passed down through generations.
Thorough quality control ensures you can safely enjoy our tea every day.
Nakamura Chaho's Japanese tea factory obtained FSSC 22000, an international standard for food safety management, in 2022. In 2020, we also acquired MPJA Halal certification, ensuring that our tea can be enjoyed with peace of mind by Muslim consumers. We produce tea that is safe to drink under a thorough food safety management system.