Held every year, National Japanese Tea Competition celebrates and honors the craftsmanship of Japanese tea. This year’s event took place in Shizuoka between 27th-29th August, with 787 tea samples presented across eight categories.The tencha category saw the highest number of submissions at 108, while kabusecha had the fewest at 78. Kyoto and Saga Prefectures stood out the most, each securing top spots in two categories: Kyoto in tencha and kabusecha, and Saga in tamaryokucha and kamairicha. The winners of each category were:
- Ordinary Sencha (10kg) – Maehara Shota from Minamikyushu City, Kagoshima Prefecture
- Ordinary Sencha (4kg) – Katsuyuki Kurizaki from Hamatatsu City, Shizuoka Prefecture
- Fukamushicha – Hiroaki Sugiyama from Kakegawa City, Shizuoka Prefecture
- Kabusecha – Kiyotomi Shimooka from Ujitawara Town, Kyoto Prefecture
- Gyokuro – Tsutomu Kurazumi from Yame City, Fukuoka Prefecture
- Tencha – Ippei Yamazaki form Uji City, Kyoto Prefecture
- Tamaryokucha – Shirakawa Minoru from Ureshino City, Saga Prefecture
- Kamairicha – Toshimitsu Yoshimuta from Ureshino City, Saga Prefecture
In addition to awards for individual producer awards, awards were also given to tea-producing regions with the highest overall scores in each category. The awarded regions include:
- Ordinary Sencha (10kg) – Minamikyushu City, Kagoshima Prefecture
- Ordinary Sencha (4kg) – Hamatatsu City, Shizuoka Prefecture
- Fukamushicha – Kakegawa City, Shizuoka Prefecture
- Kabusecha – Ayabe City, Kyoto Prefecture
- Gyokuro – Yame City, Fukuoka Prefecture
- Tencha – Uji City, Kyoto Prefecture
- Tamaryokucha – Ureshino City, Saga Prefecture
- Kamairicha – Ureshino City, Saga Prefecture
Ureshino City received two awards again this year. In addition to that, Minamikyushu City, Kakegawa City, Yame City and Uji City successfully defended their titles as well.
*The list of all competition submission in Japanese can be found here.