Susumuya Chaten Kyusu Teapot & Japanese Sencha Set

Tokoname Teapot ・ First-Flush Sencha ・ Tea Gift Set

A Small Luxury, Brewed in a Teapot
Taking a few minutes to brew tea in a teapot is a quiet, small luxury. This set pairs Kokumaro, the signature sencha of Kagoshima tea specialist Susumuya Chaten, with Susumu Kyusu 1, the shop's own original teapot. A kyusu is the traditional Japanese teapot, typically made with a side handle so it can be held and poured in one hand. If you want to start drinking Japanese tea properly, this is the box to start with. It comes in two versions: a simple set of teapot and tea, and a jubako gift set that adds two cups — jubako being the tiered lidded boxes traditionally used in Japan to present food on celebratory occasions.

A refined gift — tea and teaware in a jubako box

Kokumaro — The House Sencha
Kokumaro is the sencha that represents Susumuya Chaten: a green tea defined by natural sweetness and a rounded, mellow body. With very little astringency, it is easy to drink and an ideal first step for anyone new to Japanese tea.

Susumu Kyusu 1 — A Teapot Designed for Flavor Alone
Susumu Kyusu 1 is an original teapot designed with a single aim: to draw out the full flavor of Japanese tea and brew a truly good cup. The base is wide, giving the leaves room to open fully as they steep. The body is kept compact and low, so it is easy to hold and tip all the way, pouring out every last drop — in Japanese tea, the final drops carry the most concentrated flavor, and draining the pot fully also keeps the leaves ready for a second infusion. A small notch opposite the spout makes it easy to empty the used leaves. Each teapot is thrown by hand on a potter's wheel in Tokoname, giving it a warm, quietly handmade presence.

A compact, low profile that is easy to hold and pour to the last drop

The Cups — Arita Porcelain in Natural White
The cups in the jubako set are an original design for Susumuya Chaten, made by Imamura Seito, a porcelain maker in Arita — the town where porcelain was first produced in Japan. Stripped of decoration, the form is spare and purposeful. The cups are slightly larger than a typical Japanese teacup, sized for a slow, unhurried drink. Their kinari white — a soft, natural off-white — comes from a porcelain that takes extra time and care to refine, and it is a finish meant to be enjoyed as it gains character through use.

A brief, everyday luxury — brewing tea in a teapot

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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