Susumuya Chaten Premium Japanese Green Tea "HUMAN"

Premium Green Tea ・ Three Steaming Styles ・ Kagoshima, Japan

Growing, Selecting, Roasting — Mastery at Every Step
HUMAN is the premium series from Kagoshima tea specialist Susumuya Chaten, and its very finest. It is dedicated to every craftsperson involved in making tea — the grower, the tea selector, and the roaster. From preparing the soil through processing, selection, and roasting, each step builds on human skill and experience, with no compromise along the way. The result is a masterpiece shared by all the craftspeople connected to Susumuya Chaten.

Susumuya Chaten's highest-quality Japanese tea series

One Leaf, Three Characters
What sets HUMAN apart is that it uses the same tea leaves throughout, changing only the steaming time to express three distinct characters. Steaming is the first step in making Japanese green tea: fresh leaves are briefly steamed to stop oxidation and lock in their green color. The longer the steaming, the softer and finer the leaves become — and the deeper the color and the richer the body of the brewed tea.

Asamushi (light-steamed) — clean, clear, and refreshingly transparent.
Chumushi (medium-steamed) — well balanced.
Fukamushi (deep-steamed) — bold, rich, and full-bodied.

That the same leaf can yield such different flavors speaks to the depth of the craft. These are flavors that only that year, that land, and those people could create — a Japanese tea experience at its very best.

Light, medium, deep — flavors shaped by steaming time

Choosing tea the way you choose coffee — Kagoshima green tea, presented honestly
Susumuya Chaten is a Japanese tea specialist born from a tea wholesaler with more than 100 years of history in Kagoshima, the prefecture at the southern tip of Kyushu. It deals exclusively in Kagoshima tea, including Chiran and Kirishima teas, named for growing districts within the prefecture. Its fourth-generation president, Kotaro Shinbara, set out to address a contradiction.

"Kagoshima is one of Japan's leading tea regions, and it has now overtaken Shizuoka to become the country's largest producer — it grows a full third of all Japanese tea. Yet most of it is shipped out of the prefecture and disappears as raw material for blends. The region's name never makes it onto the label, there are few specialist tea shops in Kagoshima itself, and the tea simply sits on supermarket shelves. I want to change how little Kagoshima tea is recognized compared with tea from Shizuoka or Kyoto."
— Kotaro Shinbara, President, Susumuya Chaten

"To share the true quality of Kagoshima tea, just as it is." That wish is where Susumuya Chaten began.

Kagoshima is also known for producing more single-cultivar teas than other regions. In a place where cultivars such as Saemidori, Asatsuyu and Yutakamidori all thrive, Susumuya Chaten's defining approach is a light roast and original blends, each designed to bring out the full character of individual cultivars.

Kagoshima tea, grown from a wide range of cultivars

Just as coffee drinkers choose their beans and roast level, green tea tastes entirely different depending on the cultivar and how long the fresh leaves are steamed. Susumuya Chaten wants to bring the pleasure of knowing those differences — and finding your own favorite cup — into everyday life. Aiming to build a Japanese café culture around tea, much as one has grown around coffee, it runs relaxed, unpretentious tea shops in Kagoshima and Tokyo.

Susumuya Chaten's flagship store in Kagoshima

Sweetness, aroma and color: first-flush green tea, hand-selected and lightly roasted
Susumuya Chaten uses only ichibancha — the first flush, picked in the year's first harvest — and finishes it with its own light roast. Keeping the leaves as close as possible to their fresh state draws out each cultivar's natural flavor, but it leaves no room to hide flaws, and judging the heat demands real skill.

A demanding technique that keeps the leaves close to fresh, drawing out their natural flavor

It all begins with selecting the leaves. Every year in Kagoshima, tea from farms across the prefecture is sold at auction. As a tea master, Shinbara tastes hundreds of lots side by side to identify the finest of the year. Even tea from the same farm changes from year to year with the weather and growing conditions, so he starts from zero each season, committed to choosing that year's very best leaf.

Kotaro Shinbara, president and tea master of Susumuya Chaten

The chosen leaves are carefully sorted by the tea master into two grades according to shape, size and condition, then lightly roasted. Because Japanese green tea is so simple, the character of the land and of the people who make it comes straight through in its flavor and aroma.

Sorted by hand into two grades by shape, size and condition, then lightly roasted

This roasting method, kept unchanged since the shop was founded, is behind what customers tell them: "I can't drink any other tea now," and "It was so good when I received it as a gift that now I want to give it to someone myself." Only when sweetness, aroma and suishoku — the color of the brewed tea — all come together does it become Susumuya Chaten tea.

In Kagoshima, properly cold winters let the leaves store up sweetness, and flat growing land makes careful cultivation possible. Susumuya Chaten visits the farms in person and builds close relationships with the growers. Shinbara believes that sharing with them the story of where their tea ends up, and who drinks it, also helps protect its quality.

No special tools or formal rituals are needed. It doesn't even have to be a kyusu, the traditional side-handled Japanese teapot. Building a culture in which tea fits naturally into daily life, in whatever form suits each person — that remains Susumuya Chaten's constant goal.

Japanese tea culture, matcha included, is drawing growing attention from around the world. With that momentum behind it, Susumuya Chaten continues to share the richness of a single cup of tea from Kagoshima, in Japan and beyond.

Sharing Japanese tea with the world, from Kagoshima

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