Susumuya Chaten Ceremonial Grade Matcha (HAKU · SEN · AN)

Ceremonial Grade · Stone-Ground · Kagoshima

• 01 Ceremonial grade matcha, fine enough to serve at a tea ceremony
• 02 Three blends — HAKU, SEN and AN — each with its own color and flavor
• 03 A starter set with bowl, whisk and scoop, so you can begin today

Ceremonial grade matcha, for the tea ceremony and for every day

Matcha is drawing attention around the world, with demand now outpacing production. This series is ceremonial grade — the highest quality grade, fine enough to be whisked with water and served at a tea ceremony. It is selected by Susumuya Chaten, a tea specialist from Kagoshima, the prefecture that grows more tea than any other in Japan.

Top-grade matcha from Kagoshima

Matcha is made by grinding tencha — shade-grown tea leaves with the stems and veins removed — into a fine powder with a stone mill. Rather than drinking an infusion, you consume the whole leaf, including compounds found naturally in tea such as catechins and theanine.

All three share the mellow umami — a rounded, savory depth — and rich aroma of Kagoshima matcha, while each has its own color and flavor.

Three matcha, each with mellow umami and a rich aroma

Matcha HAKU: clean and refined, for everyday matcha and lattes

A clean, refined taste with no harsh edges, easy to drink — a staple for everyday matcha. It is also easy to use in matcha lattes and other casual drinks, making it a good first tin for anyone new to matcha.

Matcha SEN: the balanced Susumuya standard

Balanced in flavor, this is the Susumuya standard — an easy choice for your first tin or for a gift.

Matcha AN: mellow and full-bodied, made for pairing with sweets

Mellow and full-bodied, it pairs beautifully with sweets. For a bowl at a tea ceremony, or as an everyday treat.

Alongside single 30 g tins, a two-tin set (AN + HAKU) and a three-tin set (AN + SEN + HAKU) let you compare the flavors side by side.

If you are just starting out with matcha, we recommend the Matcha Starter Set. It pairs a 30 g tin of HAKU with an original matcha bowl made by Imamura Seito, a porcelain maker in Arita; a bamboo whisk (chasen) with 100 tines, made from Yamadera bamboo; a whisk holder (kusenaoshi), which keeps the whisk in shape as it dries; and a bamboo scoop (chashaku). With 100 fine tines and a thick handle, the whisk is designed to be easy to use even for beginners.

A 100-tine bamboo whisk made from Yamadera bamboo

With everything you need in one box, you can start making matcha right away. It is a popular gift for anyone with an interest in Japanese culture.

Everything you need to enjoy matcha

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 Niihara, 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 Niihara, 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, Niihara 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 Niihara, 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. Niihara 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