The National Tea Competition is held every year to recognize Japan’s finest teas across eight categories.
This year’s competition was held in Nara and took place at the end of August. A total of 819 samples were submitted from 18 prefectures. 20 tea professionals representing tea producing companies and research centers served as judges and the results were announced on August 29th. Producers from Kyoto took top honors in the tencha and kabusecha categories, Shizuoka excelled in regular sencha and fukamushicha categories, while Saga claimed victories in tamaryokucha and kamairicha categories.
The participating teas were later auctioned on September 18th. Compared to last year, average prices rose sharply, with tencha reaching average price of 252,993yen/kg – up by 133%, kamairicha 22,298yen/kg – up by 56%, and gyokuro 76,027yen/kg – up by 30%. On the other hand, the prices for regular sencha, fukamushicha and tamaryokucha remained largely unchanged.
Finally, the award ceremony to celebrate the winning teas and producers is planned in Nara on November 29th.
More information about this year’s competition and results (in Japanese) is available here.