Fog is the first thing you notice about Ureshino. It rolls in from the valleys before dawn, settling heavy and cool over the terraced fields. By the time the mist lifts, the tea plants have already drunk it in — every morning a quiet exchange between the land and the leaf.
Saga Prefecture sits in the northwest corner of Kyushu, and its tea story is one of the oldest in Japan. Recent figures from Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) put the prefecture's annual production at under 1,000 tonnes — well below the figures of a decade ago. That output makes Saga one of the smaller producing prefectures by volume, but its influence on Japanese tea culture runs far deeper than the production volume suggests.
Where Kamairicha came from
Most Japanese green tea is steamed. Walk into any tea shop in Tokyo, and the leaves you encounter — Sencha, Gyokuro, Hojicha — will have passed through a brief but critical steaming step right after harvest. Steaming stops oxidation and locks in the grassy, vegetal character that defines most Japanese teas.
Saga does something different. The prefecture is one of the last remaining strongholds of Kamairicha, a pan-fired green tea made in the Chinese style. Instead of steam, the freshly picked leaves are tossed in a heated iron pan — traditionally a curved-bottom wok — where they dry, curl, and develop a roasted, slightly nutty quality that steamed teas simply do not have.
The technique arrived in Ureshino in the early 16th century, brought by potters from Ming Dynasty China. Historical records suggest that a craftsman named Hong Lingmin arrived around 1504, carrying both pottery knowledge and the pan-firing method. The method of manufacturing Sencha would not spread through Japan until the Edo period, meaning Kamairicha was being produced in Ureshino well before steamed teas became the national default.
That timing matters. Saga's tea tradition predates the mainstream. Pan-firing never disappeared from Ureshino the way it did from most other regions — and today it remains a point of genuine distinction for the area.
Ureshino: the center of Saga tea
Ureshino City, in the southwestern part of Saga Prefecture, is where most of the prefecture's tea comes from. The region sits in a gentle mountain basin fed by rivers and surrounded by hills — an enclosed landscape that traps moisture and creates the fog that tea farmers describe as essential to their work.
The combination of warm climate, substantial rainfall, and significant morning-to-evening temperature swings allows the tea plants to develop slowly. Slow growth means higher concentrations of the amino acids and aromatic compounds that make the tea taste full and complex. The local saying goes that Ureshino's fogs "soften" the tea — and tasted side by side with tea from sunnier, drier regions, you notice it.
Ureshino produces a distinctive tea called Tamaryokucha — also written Tama-ryokucha and known by its regional nickname, Guri-cha. Unlike the straight, needle-shaped leaves of most Sencha, Tamaryokucha leaves roll into a curved, comma shape during processing. The rolling is partly a visual quirk and partly a functional one: the tightly curled leaves release their flavor slowly, giving the brewed tea a rounded, sweetly vegetal character with a lingering umami finish.
Depending on the processing method, Tamaryokucha is produced in two styles. Steamed Tamaryokucha uses the brief steam treatment standard in Japanese green tea. Roasted Tamaryokucha — the Kamairicha variant — uses the pan-firing method instead, producing a cup with more toasted notes. The majority of Ureshino production leans toward the steamed version, but the pan-fired style remains alive and sought after by those who know to ask for it.
How Ureshino tea reached the world
Long before Yokohama became Japan's main tea export port, Ureshino tea was leaving the country through Nagasaki. In the final years of the Edo period — around 1853-1856 — a woman trader named Oura Kei organized one of Japan's first private-sector tea exports from Nagasaki, several years before Yokohama opened to formal Western trade in 1859. The tea she exported was from Ureshino.
That export history reflects how commercially developed Ureshino's tea industry already was by the mid-19th century. The region had been cultivated seriously since the early Edo period, when the Saga clan samurai Yoshimura Shinbei cleared forestland and scaled up tea cultivation using improved pan-firing techniques. By the time Japan formally opened to Western trade, Ureshino had been exporting for generations.
Other growing areas within Saga
Tea cultivation in Saga extends beyond Ureshino, though the city remains the most recognized name. Takeo City, Imari City, Shioda Town, and Kitahata Village all produce tea within the prefecture, each with its own microclimate and character.
Takeo, just north of Ureshino, shares a similar mountain basin environment and produces Tamaryokucha as well. Imari sits closer to the coast, where the climate is slightly different — the maritime influence moderating temperatures and softening the flavor profile of its teas.
The cultivars grown across these areas reflect Saga's diversity. Yabukita — the reliable workhorse of Japanese tea farming — grows here alongside Saemidori, Saeakari, Sakimidori, Asatsuyu, Okuyutaka, and Okumidori. Okumidori in particular produces teas with notably high umami that work well in the region's lightly shaded growing conditions.
What Saga teaches us about Japanese tea
One of the things we find most interesting about Saga is how it complicates the easy narrative of Japanese tea. It is tempting to describe Japanese green tea as a category defined by steam. Saga is a reminder that pan-firing has deep roots here too — that the Chinese tea tradition shaped Japan's practices more directly, and for longer, than most tea drinkers realize.
Kamairicha from Ureshino is not widely exported and not easy to find outside Japan. When you do encounter it — the curved leaf, the light golden cup, the toasted warmth underneath the green — it feels like a corner of Japan's tea history that did not get translated for international audiences. That relative obscurity is part of its appeal.
For a broader look at how Japan's tea regions compare, our guide to Japan's major tea-producing regions maps the full picture — from Shizuoka and Kagoshima to the mountain regions of Kyoto and Mie. Saga occupies a quieter corner of that map, but one with a long memory.