Masui Etsuro, the pioneer. Wakoucha Tasting tea N°15: Kawane Koshun, 1st flush, 2017, Thés du Japon.

Masui Etsuro is one of the pioneers of black tea in Japan. He was born and raised in Kawane in Shizuoka but his desire to see the world and work in a developing country brought him to Senegal, where he worked for many years. After some time in the USA he returned to his native land in Kawane, in the Haibara district. Kawane is a town in the hills of Shizuoka, at 500 to 600m above sea level, famous for its green tea. In 1984 he planted the Koshun cultivar in a corner of the garden that was too cold for Yabukita.

Very quickly he started to experiment with black tea. He was one of the first in Japan and felt pretty lonely in the beginning, with only a tea processing manual to help him. He was lucky to have a customer who was supporting him and after five years he started more or less to know what he was doing. About the same time the Koshun he planted when he came back in 1984 were ready. When in 1988 prices of green tea started to drop his black tea started to make more sense. Before his own mother complained about the waste of good tea leaves on bad tea... From 2000 some other farmers started to follow and the first Wakoucha festival was organised in Tottori. Today mr Etsuro is one of the true pioneers of Wakoucha, and he makes some very good ones !

You can find a great video about this farmer here (https://youtu.be/QpTwBWTznto) and see his teagarden and part of his production process, even if the video is in Japanese. He never uses pesticides, and you can see it in part of the video.

Copyright: https://gurusuguri.com/shop/masuisanchi/masui03/

Kawane Koshun 1st flush 2017, Thés du Japon:

Harvested 23 May 2017. 28.6 euro for 100 gram (excl import taxes). Koshun is a crossing between Kanayamidori and Kurasawa, often used for kamairicha or oolong. Its rather small leaves bring floral aroma's, and almond seems to be typical too for this cultivar.

August 10th, 2019, late afternoon, windy but dry, a leaf day. The dry leaves smell very nice, very elegant, and they are a mix of colours and sizes, from dark brown to light brown and even green-grey, and some are complete and some are broken. The wet leaves smell beautiful and overwhelming, and very complex, with vanilla and flowers. You can see the green leaves in the mix as this tea did not completely oxydize. Koshun does not easily oxydize and the steeming partly stops it too. This brings the elegance and the 'green' elements into the tea and is typical for this Wakoucha-school. The infusion has a beautiful coppery golden orange glow. The smell is delightful and complex, with vanilla and flowers but alos the structure of a black tea. Nice body, very nice structure, with a well developed but controlled astringency that paired perfectly with the sweetness. Very long aftertaste. Brilliant echo. Excellent wakoucha in a very convincing style, marrying Darjeeling to Japan.
Second brew, same parameters: more almond, or is this my imagination ? Less astringent and a pleasure to drink, more charming then the first brew but a bit less interesting. Still a very nice aftertaste.

😊😊😊😊

The tea comes from Thés du Japon but is currently sold out.