Katsumi Saito
Saito organic tea garden
From Honyama, Shizuoka.
Mr. Katsumi Saito represents the 17th generation of tea producers in Honyama. Convinced that the inhabitants of the peaks should never pollute the waters that flow down to the valley, he converted his family garden to organic over 40 years ago, with an obsession for biodiversity: he intentionally lets grass grow between the rows and refuses to eliminate insects, favoring coexistence.
a family story
he now works with his wife and their daughter, alternating between small hand-harvesting machines, manual picking (tezumi) for the most delicate plots, and processing on the farm.
the family produces sencha, gyokuro, and hojicha of great purity, while their matcha is stone-ground to order, in a slow and precise craft.
homemade fertilizers
he makes his own fertilizers, a know-how he has developed over the years; he keeps a "tea journal" where he notes his observations, trials, and errors, a practice he has followed since he was 20 and which still guides all his decisions in the garden.
After the harvest, each batch of tea is processed with the utmost care. Temperature, duration, humidity… everything is adjusted based on experience and the five senses, in order to fully reveal the unique character of each harvest.
