Asahina Gyokuro: Shizuoka's Hidden Tea Valley

By Christian Mauerer, founder of One with Tea.

Asahina gyokuro is shaded, hand-picked gyokuro grown in the Asahina district of Okabe, in Fujieda City, Shizuoka Prefecture. The fields sit on both banks of the Asahina River, in a narrow valley with mountains close on either side. Japan counts this small pocket as one of its three great gyokuro regions, alongside Uji in Kyoto and Yame in Fukuoka (Shizuoka Prefecture).

Here's what pulled me in. In 2008, the last year the agriculture ministry published a gyokuro figure at all, the whole of Shizuoka made 12 tonnes of it, the smallest of the five prefectures on that table. Kyoto made 140. A year later the statistic that would let anyone track this tea was folded into a broader category, and as of September 2026 I have not found a later release that brings it back.

Key Takeaways

• Asahina gyokuro comes from Okabe-cho, Fujieda City, Shizuoka, and sits with Uji and Yame as one of Japan's three great gyokuro regions (Shizuoka Prefecture).
• Gyokuro growing began here around Meiji 30, roughly 1897 (CHANOYU). For decades the leaf was shipped to Uji and sold under Uji's name, and only from the late 1950s was it sold as Asahina gyokuro (Japanese Tea Sommelier).
• The leaf is shaded about 20 days at a light-blocking rate of 95 percent or more, under straw komo screens on a tana trellis, grown in natural form and picked by hand (Yabuzaki-en).
• Shizuoka produced 12 tonnes of gyokuro in 2008, last of the five prefectures the ministry listed, and from 2009 gyokuro stopped being reported separately (Japanese Wikipedia, 玉露).
• The area has taken the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Award ten times since 1965 in the gyokuro category of the National Tea Competition (CHANOYU).

Where is Asahina, and why does gyokuro grow there?

Asahina is a district of Okabe-cho in Fujieda City. Fujieda's tea growing centres on Setoya, Hanashi and Asahina (Fujieda City), and Asahina is the one that made gyokuro its name.

There is very little flat ground in it. The hills come down close to the water, and Fujieda sits where two of Shizuoka's mountain tea areas meet, Hon'yama and Kawane, which tells you most of what you need to know about the terrain: sloped, cool, and hemmed in by mountains (Japanese Tea Sommelier).

Fujieda's tourism office describes the same valley from the traveller's side, a run of tea gardens along the Asahina River (Fujieda City tourism).

That geography is the whole reason the tea is what it is. Land this steep rules out scale, so the growers went the other way and built a reputation on a crop that rewards patience. New to the tea itself? Start with our guide to what gyokuro is and how shading changes it, then our overview of the Shizuoka tea region.

How did a tiny Okabe valley end up beside Uji and Yame?

It started early, then spent half a century wearing somebody else's name. Tea has been grown along the Asahina River since the Muromachi period, and Edo-period documents from 1681 record tea gardens in Fujieda (Fujieda City). Gyokuro arrived far later, around Meiji 30, roughly 1897 (CHANOYU).

For decades after that, almost none of it was sold as Asahina anything. Early Okabe gyokuro was mostly shipped to Uji and sold under Uji's name. Only from the late 1950s, as Japan's domestic market developed, did the valley sell its tea in its own right (Japanese Tea Sommelier).

Sit with that. Uji had been famous for centuries, and Yame was building its name. Asahina supplied a reputation that belonged to someone else, then had to start its own from nothing.

Competitions are how it caught up. In the gyokuro category of the National Tea Competition the area has taken the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Award ten times since 1965 (CHANOYU), and it has taken the region award too (Shizuoka Prefecture). Judged leaf, ten times over sixty years. That is a slower way to build a name than marketing, and a harder one to argue with.

How is Asahina gyokuro shaded, and for how long?

Asahina gyokuro is shaded for about 20 days before picking, under screens laid across a raised framework (CHANOYU; Yabuzaki-en). The published definition of "Asahina temizumi hongyokuro" is specific: a light-blocking rate of 95 percent or more, covering that comes down the sides of the trellis and not only over the top, started at the 1.5 to 2 leaf stage and held for about 20 days (Yabuzaki-en).

The traditional cover is komo, a screen woven from straw, laid over a wooden trellis called a tana (CHANOYU; Yabuzaki-en). Kanreisha mesh is the common cover across Japan now, because it is cheap and reusable over many seasons. Asahina still works with straw, which is why the old covered-garden landscape is still there to look at (Yabuzaki-en).

The bushes matter as much as the cover. They're grown shizen-shitate, natural form, left as bushes rather than clipped into the flat tabletop hedges that roll across most of Shizuoka (Japanese Tea Sommelier). Those hedges exist so a harvesting machine can pass over them. A natural-form bush can't be cut that way.

So the picking is done by hand, one bud and two leaves at a time, 一芯二葉 (Yabuzaki-en). It's slow, it happens once a year in a short window, and it needs people who know what they're reaching for. In Asahina, around 90 percent of the tea fields are grown under cover (OCHATIMES).

Twenty days is not a round number somebody picked for the poetry of it. It is the line between two teas. Our explainer on kabusecha covers the shorter end of that scale, and it is worth knowing which one you're buying.

How much Asahina gyokuro is there?

Nobody can tell you, and that's the honest answer. The last official national figure for gyokuro is from 2008, when the ministry's crop table gave Kyoto 140 tonnes, Mie 132, Fukuoka 99, Kumamoto 16 and Shizuoka 12 (Japanese Wikipedia, 玉露, citing the 2008 MAFF table). Shizuoka came last of the five prefectures on that table, behind Kumamoto, which made 16.

Now look at Mie. It went from 3 tonnes in 2007 to 132 in 2008, more than a 40-fold jump. No prefecture plants its way to that. Mie had started certifying as gyokuro a high-grade leaf shaded about 20 days under sheeting laid directly over the rows, where the older definition called for a raised trellis over a covered garden. Producer bodies in Fukuoka, Kyoto and Shizuoka objected that this would confuse consumers (Japanese Wikipedia, 玉露). Our piece on Ise-cha and the Mie tea region has more.

The ministry's answer was to stop counting. From 2009 it folded gyokuro, kabusecha and tencha into one category, ōi-cha, covered tea, provisionally, until the handling of roughly 20-day direct covering was settled.

Provisionally. MAFF last published gyokuro as a separate crop in 2008, and as of September 2026 I have not found a later release that brings the line back. That table says nothing about Asahina specifically, which is why our breakdown of Japanese tea production by region couldn't give a current number for this one crop. A definition got contested, and the measurement stopped.

The growers: about a dozen, and all past 65 as of 2017

The best documented grower in the valley is Yabuzaki-en, 薮崎園, founded in the mid-Edo period, incorporated in 2000 and run by Masayuki Yabuzaki, the 13th generation of the family. It sits at 1135-1 Katsurashima, Okabe-cho, Fujieda City (OCHATIMES; Yabuzaki-en).

Then there's the number I keep coming back to. In 2017, Japanese Tea Sommelier reported that only about a dozen producers in Asahina were still making true shizen-shitate hand-picked gyokuro, that every one of them was over 65, and that none had a successor. One of them, Maeshima Shin'ya, was 70 at the time. That isn't a shrinking market. It's an arithmetic problem with a deadline.

The valley has written down what it's trying to keep. "Asahina temizumi hongyokuro", 朝比奈手摘み本玉露, is a standard set by the Fujieda Tea Promotion Council: first-flush shoots, grown shizen-shitate under a tana, picked by hand by pickers (Fujieda City). Yabuzaki-en, which publishes that definition on its own site, puts the consequence plainly: by the nature of the production method, the volume made is very limited (Yabuzaki-en).

Fujieda City also runs a succession programme, 朝比奈玉露承継事業, supporting trainees and the master growers who take them on (Fujieda City). The district calls those masters gyokuro meijin, 玉露名人 (Yabuzaki-en). A city funding apprentices for a crop with no published national statistic has decided the skill is worth more than the number.

What does twenty days of shade cost, and taste like?

Gyokuro sells for roughly 1,500 to 3,000 yen per 100 g, about three times the price of kabusecha (Japanese Wikipedia, 玉露). Once you've seen how it's made, that gap stops looking like a premium and starts looking like an invoice: three weeks of covering work, bushes that no machine can harvest, and a crew picking every shoot by hand.

The long shade is also what you taste. Leaf grown under cover comes out deep green and soft, and the cup leans thick and savoury rather than brisk, the quality Japanese tea people call umami. Gyokuro is brewed cooler and slower than everyday leaf, which our guide to sencha compared with gyokuro walks through.

The plants vary more than you'd expect for one small valley. Saemidori is considered a good match for gyokuro in Shizuoka, though frost risk limits how widely it's planted. Yabukita and Okumidori are the main varieties, and older plantings of Gokō and Asahi are still standing (Japanese Tea Sommelier).

So a bag labelled Asahina gyokuro could be any of several cultivars, from a handful of farms, in a volume nobody publishes. If you ever get offered a cup, ask the grower's name. In a valley this size, they'll know it.

Two ways to take this further

Straight with you first: we don't sell Asahina gyokuro, and we don't buy from any farm named here. This is reporting, not a product listing.

If you're drinking at home. Our own shelf is organic Japanese tea from producers we work with directly, and you can see the range in our tea shop.

If you're buying for a business. Cafés, retailers and tea rooms can ask about pricing, samples and lead times through our wholesale page.

Frequently asked questions

How long is Asahina gyokuro shaded, and under what?

About 20 days before picking, at a light-blocking rate of 95 percent or more, with the cover taken down the sides of the trellis as well as over the top. Covering starts at the 1.5 to 2 leaf stage, under straw komo screens on a tana (Yabuzaki-en).

Why is there no current gyokuro production figure?

Because the ministry stopped reporting one. From 2009, MAFF folded gyokuro, kabusecha and tencha into a single "covered tea" category, provisionally, until the handling of roughly 20-day direct covering was clarified. That followed Mie's 2008 jump from 3 to 132 tonnes under a looser definition (Japanese Wikipedia, 玉露).

How is Asahina gyokuro different from Uji gyokuro?

Mostly by place, history and scale. Asahina's early gyokuro was shipped to Uji and sold under Uji's name, and only from the late 1950s was it sold under its own (Japanese Tea Sommelier). In the 2008 crop table, Kyoto produced 140 tonnes against Shizuoka's 12 (Japanese Wikipedia, 玉露).

What does "Asahina temizumi hongyokuro" mean?

It is a defined standard, not a marketing phrase. The Fujieda Tea Promotion Council requires first-flush shoots, bushes grown shizen-shitate under a tana trellis, and hand picking by pickers (Fujieda City). Yabuzaki-en states that the method itself keeps the volume produced very limited (Yabuzaki-en).

Why does gyokuro cost so much more than other green tea?

Gyokuro runs roughly 1,500 to 3,000 yen per 100 g, around three times kabusecha (Japanese Wikipedia, 玉露). The shading period is the main reason: about 20 days of near-total cover against about 7 for kabusecha, under screens that have to be built and managed, on bushes that can't be machine harvested.

What stays with me

A valley with ten Minister's Awards, a written standard that describes the work rather than the marketing, and a city paying to train successors for the dozen or so growers who were all past 65 as of 2017. They kept going without a statistic to prove anything. Some things only show up in the cup, and in who's still willing to make them.

Sources

• 藤枝茶 (Fujieda tea), Fujieda City official site. Fujieda's tea-growing districts (Setoya, Hanashi, Asahina), tea along the Asahina River since the Muromachi period, Edo-period documents from 1681. Retrieved 2026-09-28.
• 朝比奈玉露承継事業 (Asahina gyokuro succession programme), Fujieda City. The "Asahina temizumi hongyokuro" standard set by the Fujieda Tea Promotion Council, and the trainee support programme for master growers and the people they train. Retrieved 2026-09-28.
• Asahina gyokuro, Shizuoka Prefecture official food information centre. One of Japan's three great gyokuro regions with Uji and Yame; the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Award and the region award at the National Tea Competition, with no count given. Retrieved 2026-09-28.
• 朝比奈茶 (Asahina tea), CHANOYU. Gyokuro cultivation from around Meiji 30, komo straw screens, ten Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Awards in the gyokuro category since 1965. Retrieved 2026-09-28.
• Yabuzaki-en producer profile, OCHATIMES. Masayuki Yabuzaki as 13th generation, mid-Edo founding, incorporation in 2000, address in Katsurashima; about 90 percent of tea fields in Asahina grown under cover. Retrieved 2026-09-28.
• Gyokuro from Asahina, Japanese Tea Sommelier, 21 September 2017. Fujieda at the meeting of the Hon'yama and Kawane tea areas, early Okabe gyokuro shipped to Uji and sold under Uji's name until the late 1950s, shizen-shitate bushes and hand picking, about a dozen remaining hand-picked gyokuro producers all over 65 without successors, Maeshima Shin'ya then aged 70, cultivars. Retrieved 2026-09-28.
• 玉露 (Gyokuro), Japanese Wikipedia. Carries the 2008 MAFF crop table (Kyoto 140 t, Mie 132 t, Fukuoka 99 t, Kumamoto 16 t, Shizuoka 12 t), Mie's 2007 to 2008 increase and the objections to it, the 2009 suspension of separate gyokuro reporting into the "covered tea" category, the Japan Tea Central Public Interest Incorporated Association Green Tea Labelling Standard 2019 shading definitions, and the price band. Retrieved 2026-09-28.
• Asahina area, Fujieda official tourism site. The valley, the river, and the tea gardens along it. Retrieved 2026-09-28.
• Yabuzaki-en, producer site. The published definition table for 朝比奈手摘み本玉露: light-blocking rate of 95 percent or more, covering including the sides of the tana, komo and kanreisha, covering from the 1.5 to 2 leaf stage for about 20 days, hand picking of one bud and two leaves. Kanreisha as the cheap reusable national norm against Asahina's straw komo, gyokuro meijin, and the producer's statement that the method keeps volume very limited. Retrieved 2026-09-28.