I have visited Nagayama-san twice now. Each time, I end up talking with him for far longer than planned — two hours, then three — and each time I quietly tell myself it will not happen again. It always does.
Behind his house, at the edge of the tea fields, there is a wooden deck. You sit there with a cup of his tea, the March sun warming the air, and the hills of Ei stretching out below. The breeze carries something green and faintly sweet. Conversation drifts from one topic to the next, unhurried, and before you know it the afternoon is gone.
What draws me back is not just the tea, though the tea is exceptional. It is the quiet intensity behind it — a gentleness that, after two hours of conversation, reveals itself as something closer to obsession. Nagayama-san's Yabukita is among the finest we have encountered. And he chose to master it at a time when most young producers in Kagoshima were chasing newer, trendier cultivars.
Kazuhiro Nagayama. Third generation. His farm, Haruto Nari — formerly Nagayama-en — sits in the Ei district of Minamikyushu City, at the southern tip of Kagoshima. A producer who staked everything on the most common tea plant in Japan — and made it uncommon.
A grandfather's gamble in the mountains
Kagoshima is the southernmost prefecture on mainland Japan. Warm climate, long daylight hours, early springs. For tea, this means one thing: the harvest comes first. In a market where the earliest new-season tea commands the highest prices, Kagoshima producers have a natural advantage — and they have leaned into it hard.
While Shizuoka and Mie harvest around Golden Week in early May, Kagoshima fields are already picking in early April, sometimes late March. The cultivars that thrive here — Yutakamidori, Saemidori — were selected precisely for their early budding. Yutakamidori alone holds the second-largest production share in Japan, behind only Yabukita, and nearly all of it grows in Kagoshima.
The choice of Yutakamidori for this region was, in fact, Nagayama-san's grandfather's doing. He worked with researchers at the local experimental station to identify which cultivar would suit the area's conditions, and Yutakamidori was the answer. His influence on Kagoshima tea was considerable.
And then he did something that, by the logic of the market he helped shape, made no sense at all. He planted his own fields in the mountains.
The fields in the mountain valley
Higher elevation means lower temperatures. Surrounding ridges block the morning and evening sun. The picking season runs several days to several weeks behind the flatlands below. In a prefecture built on the economics of early harvest, Nagayama-san's fields are, by design, late.
Kazuhiro says he understands now what his grandfather was after.
"I think what Yabukita does is carry the scent of the place where it grows. My Yabukita has the smell of the mountain — the valley, the fog, the soil up here."
Tea stores amino acids — the source of umami — during the cold months. The cooler the growing environment, the longer the storage period, the deeper the reserves. In the mountains above Ei, morning fog pools in the valleys and filters the sunlight, acting as a natural shade. The buds push upward slowly, taking their time, accumulating flavor compounds that a faster-growing plant on the warm plains would never develop.
On the flatlands, shoots stretch quickly under abundant sun. The harvest is early and the volume is high. In the mountains, everything slows down. The trade-off is time for depth.
The proof is in the cup. Every tea Nagayama-san produces carries a concentrated umami, a richness that sits on the tongue and stays. But it was his Yabukita, specifically, that stopped me.
The first cup of Nagayama-san's Yabukita
Mid-January, still deep in winter. I visited Nagayama-san at his home, and over the course of the conversation he brewed his Yabukita for me.
The texture hit first — thick, almost viscous, rolling across the tongue with a softness that felt round rather than sharp. Then the aroma: bold, unmistakably green tea, the kind of fragrance that announces itself before the cup reaches your lips. A classic Yabukita character, but amplified. Behind it, a wave of umami that filled the mouth, balanced by just enough bitterness and astringency to keep the sweetness honest.
I have to confess something. Despite working in tea for years, I had underestimated the yabukita cultivar. It is so ubiquitous — at one point accounting for over 90 percent of Japan's green tea production — that it is easy to take for granted. A default. The cultivar everyone grows because everyone has always grown it.
The quiet dominance of Yabukita
The yabukita cultivar rose to prominence in the first half of the twentieth century — cold-hardy, reliable, and capable of producing sencha of exceptional quality. Its production share has gradually declined from that 90 percent peak, but as of 2019 it still accounted for 75 percent of all green tea grown in Japan. There is virtually no producer in the country who does not grow at least some.
That dominance, Nagayama-san told me, is precisely what makes it difficult.
"Yabukita is tricky, whatever anyone says. It handles cold well, but it is weak against disease. And because everyone grows it — because it is delicious and everyone knows it — standing out is incredibly hard. Making Yabukita that is a step above the rest, that is the real challenge."
His mountain fields, which cannot compete on speed, turn out to be the perfect environment for a different kind of competition — one measured in flavor rather than timing. Nagayama-san's tea-making, though rooted in Kagoshima, runs against the grain of everything Kagoshima tea is known for.
His Yabukita carries not only that deep umami but a fragrance that blooms through the nose — mellow, layered, lingering. I remember being surprised that a single cup could hold that much aroma. It kept shifting as the tea cooled, opening into something softer and harder to name.
"It is more rewarding to compete where everyone is."
My first impression of Nagayama-san was of a calm, gentle person. Two hours later, I understood that the gentleness contains something fiercer — a drive toward his craft that I had not encountered in quite this form before.
"It is easy to aim for the top when few people are trying. But when every farmer in the country is growing the same cultivar, and you are trying to be the best at that — there is more meaning in it. That is why I want to master Yabukita."
He said this plainly, without bravado. A statement of intent, not a boast. Every tea producer in Japan grows Yabukita. Nagayama-san looked at that crowded field and decided it was exactly where he wanted to compete.
"If you give the tea your care, it responds. The plant does not complain — it just listens. You put in the effort, you give it attention, and it answers you honestly. But the moment you cut corners, it shows. The tea tells you everything."
Tea is not an annual crop. The relationship between a producer and a tea plant lasts decades. Unlike vegetables, which start from zero each season, tea builds on what came before — every year of pruning, every year of soil management, every year of attention compounds into the flavor of the next harvest.
Nagayama-san's fields bear this out. They are immaculate year-round — the rows trimmed with a precision that speaks of daily presence, not seasonal effort. The wooden deck behind his house, where we sat drinking tea and watching the light move across the hills, felt like an extension of the same impulse. A place built by someone who wants to be close to his fields, always.
He talks about tea with neighboring producers late into the night, sometimes until dawn.
"The conversation never runs out. Last night I was up talking with another producer — still was not enough. I am just obsessed, basically. I love it so much I cannot help myself. And that is why it is such a pleasure to talk with people like you, who have been to farms all over the country. It gives me energy."
Other producers have told us that during the new-tea season, Nagayama-san seems to glow — that there is a visible lightness about him when the first flush is coming in. Perhaps that is why we lose track of time whenever we visit. His enthusiasm is not loud, but it is contagious. Two hours pass, then three, and neither of us notices.
The deck, the breeze, the next cup
We are fond of Nagayama-san — of who he is and of what he makes. The Yabukita from his mountain fields, shaped by fog and patience and a stubbornness that runs three generations deep. The way he talks about tea as though each plant were a conversation partner, listening and responding across the years.
One day, perhaps soon, I will sit on that wooden deck again. The March sun will be warm, the breeze will carry the scent of new growth, and Nagayama-san will pour another cup. There will be no reason to hurry.