Discover Authenticity
Experience the Essence of Japanese Tradition through Premium Matcha and Black Tea at Senzoku
Our story
It started with a tea ceremony. In my student days, I founded a sencha tea ceremony club, and we were invited to hold a tea gathering at Enryaku-ji, the great temple on Mt. Hiei. Searching for the right tea, I learned of the Hiyoshi Tea Garden — said to be planted with tea brought from China by the monk Saicho over 1,200 years ago — and that its tea was sold by one shop: Nakagawa Seiseido, a tea merchant family in Otsu since 1845. I visited with my club members, and Mr. Nakagawa served me a cold-brewed Asamiya tea. I never forgot it.
Seven years later
I kept coming back to the shop for seven years. When I finally made his tea a daily habit — cold-brewing bancha in a bottle every morning — things changed. I stopped buying bottled drinks entirely. I felt better, lighter, more steady. The tea was doing quietly what it has done for people for centuries. wanted to taste the leaves more clearly, so I started driving to a spring in Takashima to collect soft water (hardness 27 — ideal for Japanese tea). One day, Mr. Nakagawa came with me. A tea merchant of six generations and me, filling bottles at a spring chosen by whisky distillers for its purity. On that drive I told him my idea: to bring his teas to the world. He said yes.
Senzoku exists to share that experience — the right leaves, honestly grown in Shiga’s historic tea mountains, with everything you need to brew them well: water tips, storage advice, and brewing guides with every order
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