Kukicha
Kukicha
Karigane Kukicha from a single Uji source. Stem-and-twig tea, gently steamed, never roasted. Soft hay, light umami, and the lowest caffeine in the box.
From the gardens of Uji.
Kukicha is the Japanese tea you've never had right. Made from the stems, twigs, and stalks of the tea plant rather than the leaves, it is the quiet, low-caffeine, sweet-vegetal Japanese household tea. Where sencha gives bright vegetal grass and gyokuro gives concentrated umami, kukicha gives mild sweetness, hay, and a clean mineral body. The cup is pale gold, the register is gentle, and the caffeine is barely there.
We source Karigane — the technical name for stem tea from gyokuro and high-grade sencha processing, sometimes called the "wild goose" tea after the long stalks that resemble its neck. Karigane is the most refined kukicha grade: the stems carry residual sweetness from the shading process used to grow gyokuro, and that sweetness comes through clearly in the cup. Our source is a single Uji producer who treats karigane as a deliberate product, not a by-product.
Stems, twigs, and the cup that comes from the side.
Kukicha begins with the gyokuro or sencha harvest. After the leaf is graded and the highest-grade tea is reserved for export, what remains is the stem-and-twig material that carries the same plant's character in a different ratio. Stems hold more theanine and less caffeine than the leaves do. Twigs add a soft mineral note. The combination produces a cup that's lighter, sweeter, and dramatically lower in caffeine than the leaf tea it came from.
We work with a small Uji producer who treats karigane as a deliberate product rather than a by-product. The stems are hand-sorted, briefly steamed to halt oxidation, then gently dried and sealed. No roasting, no flavoring, no blending. The cup that arrives is exactly what stem tea from Uji tastes like in spring.
Hay, light umami, sweet mineral. The quietest cup in the box.
The colour is a pale gold, almost translucent. The aroma is the unmistakable kukicha nose. Fresh hay, mild grass, a hint of milky umami, and the soft underlying sweetness that distinguishes karigane from leaf-only kukicha.
A tea for after dinner, for the conversation that has slowed down, or for the cup when nothing more demanding is wanted.
Cool water. Brief steep. The simplest tea in the box.
Kukicha asks for nothing complicated. Cool water (the stems are delicate; boiling water scalds them), 60 to 90 seconds, and the cup is ready. The least temperamental tea in the lineup, and the most welcoming.
The Japanese tea you can drink at any hour.
Kukicha is the Japanese tea you can drink at any hour. The stem-and-twig composition gives it very low caffeine. Roughly 5 to 15mg per cup, less than a fifth of a black tea. Children drink it, the elderly drink it, and you can pour it after dinner without disturbing sleep. Japan calls it the household tea, and it earns the name.
Most kukicha sold in the West is leaf-only and machine-processed. The cup that arrives is thin, vegetal in an uninteresting way, and lacks the sweetness that defines the Uji register. We chose Karigane — the high-grade stem-and-twig material from Uji gyokuro and high-grade sencha processing — because it's the most refined expression of the category. Stems carry residual sweetness from the shading process used to grow gyokuro, and that sweetness comes through cleanly in the cup.
Saint Graal sources from a single Uji producer who hand-sorts the karigane material and packages it within weeks of harvest. Steamed, gently dried, never roasted. The cup that arrives is exactly what stem tea from Uji tastes like in spring. Light, sweet, mineral, and as quiet as tea gets.