The history of Kaga bōcha includes a story of using tea stems and spreading the practice locally, and another of searching tea gardens across Japan for the material to create a particular product. One began with a material close at hand; the other worked back from a desired cup to the material needed. Teas with similar names had different starting points.
1902: sharing a way to use stems
The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries’ encyclopedia of traditional Japanese foods says that in Meiji 35 (1902), the Kanazawa tea merchant Hayashiya Shinbei developed a way to use tea stems and began selling Kaga bōcha. It says the method was shared and spread through Ishikawa Prefecture.
A tea first sold by one shop spread across a region as its method became known. Kaga bōcha in this account is not the name of just one company’s product.
1983: a search across Japan for tea to serve in Ishikawa
According to Maruhachi Seichajo’s retrospective, the company was asked to prepare hojicha for Emperor Showa’s accommodation when he visited Ishikawa Prefecture for the National Tree Planting Festival in 1983. It says it searched tea gardens throughout Japan and arrived at first-harvest tea from Kagoshima.
The company made it into bōcha as a tea to be served in Ishikawa. The place of drinking was Ishikawa; the selected material came from Kagoshima. Being a regional tea does not necessarily mean its ingredients were grown in the same region.
A light roast for aroma and a clean taste
The company says it sought a light roast that retained a fragrant roasted aroma while drinking cleanly. Its account describes considering how to roast and brew the tea, rather than stopping at the choice of material.
The development considered aroma and the experience of drinking together, instead of pursuing ever stronger roasted notes. What to use and how far to heat it were combined in pursuit of one cup.
A product launched the following year was not an immediate success
Maruhachi Seichajo says it commercialised the tea the year after serving it to the emperor. It also recalls that sales were initially slow because the price was high for hojicha. In its account, the idea of a premium bōcha came to be accepted later.
Creating a tea for a special request and making a product people will regularly buy are different challenges. The story of Kenjō Kaga Bōcha includes not only choices about materials and roasting, but also the time it took for a new product to find acceptance.
A product’s history sits within a regional tea’s history
The story centred on 1902 follows Kaga bōcha’s spread through a region; the story centred on 1983 follows the occasion that prompted Kenjō Kaga Bōcha’s development. Within the regional tea, new attempts at ingredient selection, roasting and commercialisation accumulated.
Knowing those two years helps explain why Kaga bōcha and Kenjō Kaga Bōcha on a packet are neither the same story because their names resemble one another, nor unrelated stories because their names differ.