Zenkouen Kuki Hojicha

Yoshimitsu Masuda spent the first part of his adult life working in a major farming cooperative where he learned firsthand about the danger of food additives and pesticides. Returning to the family tea farm in 1992 to learn tea making from his father and fellow tea farmers in Shimada, Shizuoka, he was deeply surprised at the amount of pesticides used in tea farming.

Switching to organic farming was not an easy task; insects and disease plagued the first field he was given charge of, crop yield and leaf quality dropped, and he faced criticism from both family and other tea professionals. But he felt it was important to create tea that was safe for his own family to drink first.

Today, built upon 25+ years of organic farming experience, Masuda-san produces tea that he is proud to call both safe and delicious and is passing his tea-making skills on to his children.