About Koyano Farm

Premium Japanese green tea from the mountains of Kawane, Shizuoka

There's a valley in Shizuoka, Japan where families have grown green tea on the same slopes for four hundred years. It produces some of the most celebrated tea in the country — and you've almost certainly never tasted it, because almost none of it has ever left Japan. Until now.

Taka Koyano was born in Japan and moved to the US as a child, eventually making a new home for himself in Denver, Colorado. He founded Koyano Farm with the dream of bringing his family’s tea to the US, ensuring that the rich heritage of their village would continue to thrive for generations to come.

"Some of my earliest memories are of harvest season in Kawane, the village my family comes from. It sits so high that river fog rolls through the tea fields most mornings — up there, the gardens have a name of their own: the tea gardens in the sky.

For hundreds of years these mountains have produced some of the most celebrated green tea in Japan. My grandfather worked those fields his whole life, and my grandmother still lives on the land. Green tea isn't just a crop where we're from. It's an identity, a heritage handed down the same slopes for generations."

— Taka Koyano, Founder

Tea gardens in the sky

The village sits high enough that river fog rolls through the fields most mornings and shades the leaves like a natural canopy. Warm days and cold nights slow their growth, and slow leaves hold their sweetness. That's where the flavor comes from — bright and clean at the front, a natural sweetness through the middle, and a savory depth that stays with you. It doesn't taste like the green tea most Americans know.

The slopes are too steep for machinery, so nothing here is grown at scale. Thirteen families still farm the village, and every row is looked after by hand across the whole year. Four hundred years of that kind of care is why Kawane is among the most decorated tea regions in Japan — and why, in 1964, it became the first tea region in the country ever awarded the Emperor's Cup, the highest honor in Japanese agriculture.

Kawane Sencha

Our Kawane Sencha (Japanese green tea) is certified organic, single origin, and harvested once a year. Less than one percent of the world's green tea meets the organic standard. The harvests here are small by nature, and what there is has always been bought up in Japan long before it could travel anywhere else — which is why so few people outside the country have ever tasted it.

“Drinking tea is a way of life for us. It’s how we welcome people. Whenever anyone comes to our house, we put on a fresh pot. I drink it every morning and again after lunch. It's a daily ritual that both grounds me and energizes me. Honestly, it feels like I'm drinking mother nature, and it nourishes me.” 

We’re honored to bring the craft, the history, and the love behind our tea to the United States. I can't wait for you to experience it.

 

From my family to your cup.

Taka Koyano