Soufuu: The Japanese Tea Cultivar That Smells Like Jasmine

The first time someone hands you a Japanese green tea that smells like jasmine, the honest assumption is that somebody added jasmine to it. Scented teas are common enough. That assumption is wrong here, and the reason it is wrong is the most interesting thing about this plant.

Soufuu was bred to smell that way. The floral note is not a blending trick and not a tasting-note metaphor, it is a single named molecule that a national research institute measured in the leaf and traced back to one of the plant's two parents. Very few cultivars can be described that precisely.

Key Takeaways

• Soufuu (そうふう, also written 蒼風 and sometimes romanised Sofu) is a Japanese cultivar grown for sencha and for semi-fermented tea, not for matcha.
• Its jasmine character comes from methyl anthranilate, which the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization reported is not present in sencha made from other green tea cultivars such as Yabukita.
• It was bred from Yabukita as the seed parent and Shizu-inzatsu 131 as the pollen parent, and the aroma compound was inherited from the pollen parent.
• It carries two different numbers from two different registries, Cha Norin No. 49 in 2002 and plant variety registration No. 12706 in 2005. They are not the same thing.
• Long steaming drives the aroma off, so a deep steamed Soufuu wastes the whole point of the cultivar.

What is Soufuu?

Soufuu is an early season Japanese tea cultivar bred in Shizuoka, grown mainly for first flush green tea and for summer semi-fermented tea, and known for a sweet floral aroma that reads to most people as jasmine. In the cup as a green tea it is floral and sweet with a slightly firm astringency behind it.

It sits in what I would call the wider cultivar field rather than the famous middle of it. Japan's planted area is dominated by Yabukita, and the cultivars most tea drinkers can name after that are usually the matcha and gyokuro names. Soufuu is not one of those. It is an aroma specialist, and it is grown in small quantities by producers who want a tea that does something unusual in the nose.

If you are new to how much the plant variety shapes a cup before anyone processes it, our guide to Japanese tea cultivars covers the ground this article builds on.

Where did Soufuu come from?

Soufuu was selected in 1977 at the tea research station in Kanaya, Shizuoka, the body now known as the NARO Institute of Vegetable and Tea Science. Before it was named it carried the working line name Kanaya 21 (金谷21号).

The cross is the part worth remembering. The seed parent is Yabukita, the cultivar that covers most of Japan's tea land and sets the baseline for what Japanese green tea tastes like. The pollen parent is Shizu-inzatsu 131 (静-印雑131), a far more obscure line, and that is where the aroma comes from (NARO cultivar record, そうふう).

So Soufuu is half of the most ordinary tea plant in Japan and half of something strange. That is a reasonable one line summary of the plant's whole character.

Why does Soufuu smell like jasmine?

Because of methyl anthranilate. NARO's 2002 research result on the cultivar identifies methyl anthranilate (アントラニル酸メチル), molecular formula C8H9O2N and molecular weight 151, as the compound responsible for Soufuu's sweet floral fragrance. The same compound is one of the aroma components of jasmine, which is why the association is so immediate for most people who smell it (NARO, 新品種'そうふう'に特徴的に含まれる香気成分アントラニル酸メチル).

Two findings in that work matter more than the chemistry itself.

The first is absence. NARO reported that methyl anthranilate is not contained in sencha manufactured from other green tea cultivars such as Yabukita. This is not a compound that Soufuu simply has more of than its neighbours. In the comparison NARO ran, the ordinary cultivars did not bring it at all.

The second is that the compound is present above the human sensory threshold in infusions of both Soufuu and Shizu-inzatsu 131. That is the sentence that turns a laboratory measurement into something you can actually smell in a cup, and it also confirms the inheritance, because the parent carries it too.

One correction worth making, because it circulates in English write ups of this plant. The compound is methyl anthranilate, the methyl ester, not anthranilic acid. They are related molecules and the mix up is easy, but NARO names the ester, and the ester is the one that smells of jasmine.

Why does Soufuu have two registration numbers?

Because Japan runs two separate systems, and Soufuu is in both. This trips people up constantly, including people writing about tea in English.

The first is the agriculture ministry's cultivar registry, where Soufuu is Cha Norin No. 49 (茶農林49号), registered in 2002. This is the lineage of officially recognised tea cultivars, the same series that gives Yabukita its number. The registry table lists it under its old line name Kanaya 21, with the cross given as Yabukita by Shizu-inzatsu 131, bred at Kanaya, for sencha and semi-fermented tea (茶農林登録品種一覧, 附表１).

The second is plant variety registration under Japan's seed and seedling law, which is a breeder's rights instrument rather than a catalogue. There Soufuu is registration No. 12706, registered on 7 February 2005, held by the National Institute of Vegetable and Tea Science, with a 25 year term running to 7 February 2030 (NARO cultivar record).

Same plant, two registries, two numbers, three years apart. Neither date is wrong and neither number is a typo. If you see a source give only one of them, it is not necessarily in error, it is answering a different question. The contrast is worth holding on to, because it is the opposite problem to Yutakamidori, which is Japan's second most planted cultivar and has no Cha Norin number at all.

Is Soufuu a matcha cultivar?

No, and I want to be direct about that rather than let the question sit. Soufuu is bred and grown for leaf tea. Its first flush goes to green tea, and its summer crop goes to semi-fermented tea, where NARO notes the aroma performs particularly well. It also does well as kamairicha, the pan fired style.

Matcha is a different production path. It comes from shaded tencha leaf that is dried without rolling and then milled to powder, and it generally calls for a different set of cultivars selected for umami and colour under shade rather than for aroma. Our comparison of matcha and sencha walks through why those two paths diverge so early.

We do not sell Soufuu. I am writing about it because it is a genuinely interesting plant and because the cultivar hub should describe the field honestly, not only the parts of it we happen to stock. If you want to try Soufuu you will be buying it from a Japanese single cultivar specialist, and that is the right outcome.

How should Soufuu be steamed and brewed?

Lightly. This is the practical rule that follows directly from the chemistry, and it is the one thing to take away if you take away nothing else.

Soufuu releases less of its aroma under a long steam, so it performs poorly as fukamushicha, the deep steamed style. The processing that makes Kagoshima's thick sweet sencha so satisfying is the wrong processing for this plant. It flattens the exact quality the cultivar was bred to deliver.

So look for asamushi, light steamed, when you are buying it. A producer who has gone to the trouble of planting an aroma cultivar will usually have made that choice already, but the label is worth reading.

In the cup, treat it as an aromatic tea rather than an umami one. Give it water off the boil rather than very hot water, use a vessel you can get your nose into, and smell the wet leaf before you drink. The wet leaf is where the jasmine note is most obvious. If you are calibrating against a baseline, our guide to sencha covers standard brewing parameters.

Where is Soufuu grown, and why only warm regions?

In warm ones, and the constraint is winter hardiness rather than preference.

NARO's record rates Soufuu's red leaf scorch resistance as comparable to Yabukita, but its blue scorch resistance and its frost crack resistance are both weaker than Yabukita. A cultivar that splits in a hard freeze is not a cultivar you plant in a cold prefecture. On disease it is stronger, rated strong against leaf spot, moderately strong against anthracnose, moderate against powdery mildew, and weak against red spot.

Its timing pushes the same direction. In warm regions Soufuu buds about 6 days earlier and is harvested about 4 days earlier than the national average for Yabukita, which makes it an early season cultivar. Budding early is an advantage where spring arrives early and a liability where late frosts are still possible, which is the same logic that shapes where most first flush teas are grown.

The practical result is a plant grown in pockets, mostly in Shizuoka and other warm growing areas, by producers making a deliberate choice. Compare that with Asatsuyu, another cultivar whose distinctive character keeps it in a niche rather than in the national blend.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Soufuu tea cultivar?

Soufuu (そうふう, also written 蒼風) is a Japanese tea cultivar selected in 1977 at the Kanaya tea research station in Shizuoka and grown for sencha and semi-fermented tea. It is known for a sweet floral aroma that most people describe as jasmine.

Why does Soufuu smell like jasmine?

Its leaf contains methyl anthranilate, formula C8H9O2N and molecular weight 151, which is also an aroma component of jasmine. NARO reported that this compound is not contained in sencha made from other green tea cultivars such as Yabukita, and that it occurs above the human sensory threshold in Soufuu infusions.

What are Soufuu's parents?

Yabukita is the seed parent and Shizu-inzatsu 131 is the pollen parent. The methyl anthranilate was inherited from Shizu-inzatsu 131, the pollen parent.

Is Soufuu a matcha cultivar?

No. It is grown for leaf tea, with the first flush made as green tea and the summer crop made as semi-fermented tea, where its aroma performs especially well. It is also used for kamairicha.

Why does Soufuu have two registration numbers?

They come from two separate systems. Cha Norin No. 49 is the agriculture ministry cultivar registration, granted in 2002. Plant variety registration No. 12706 is a breeder's rights registration under the seed and seedling law, granted on 7 February 2005 with a 25 year term to 2030.

Should Soufuu be deep steamed?

No. Soufuu releases less aroma under a long steam, so it does not perform well as fukamushicha. Light steamed, asamushi, preserves the floral character the cultivar exists for.

Where is Soufuu grown?

In warm regions. Its blue scorch and frost crack resistance are weaker than Yabukita, so cold prefectures are unsuitable, and it buds about 6 days earlier than the Yabukita national average, which suits an early warm spring.

A note from me

I like Soufuu for a reason that has little to do with whether it is a great everyday tea. It is a plant that proves a point I keep making about cultivars, which is that the variety decides a great deal before anyone touches the leaf.

Most tea marketing puts the story in the processing, or the region, or the person. Those all matter. But here is a plant where a researcher can name the molecule, name the parent it came from, and show that ordinary cultivars do not produce it at all. There is no ambiguity to hide behind. The jasmine is in the genetics.

We do not stock it, and I am not going to pretend otherwise to make an article convert. If you drink a lot of Japanese green tea and you have never had an aroma cultivar, Soufuu is worth ordering once from a single cultivar specialist, light steamed, and smelling before you drink it. It will recalibrate what you think a green tea is allowed to smell like.

Sources

• NARO, 新品種'そうふう'に特徴的に含まれる香気成分アントラニル酸メチル, Institute of Vegetable and Tea Science research result, 2002. Methyl anthranilate identification, formula and molecular weight, inheritance from the pollen parent, absence in other green tea cultivars, sensory threshold.
• NARO, そうふう cultivar record. Plant variety registration No. 12706 dated 7 February 2005, parentage, 1977 selection, budding and harvest offsets, cold and disease ratings, intended tea types.
• 茶農林登録品種一覧 (附表１), list of Norin-registered tea cultivars. The Cha Norin No. 49 row: そうふう, old line name 金谷２１号, cross やぶきた×静印雑１３１, year 2002, bred at 金谷, use 煎茶・半発酵茶.
• My Japanese Green Tea, Soufuu tea cultivar. English language background on the cultivar's use and steaming behaviour.