You likely have heard me mention Wazuka before. Or, if not from me, you've heard it spoken of somewhere in the world of matcha. But what is Wazuka, and why is it special?
Wazuka is, first and foremost, a town in Japan. This town serves as the epicenter of the famous tea-growing region named Uji, just south of Kyoto. It is not just that Wazuka is the urban hub of this region, however (as is the case in Yunnan, China, where Pu'er is a city where not much actual tea-growing takes place, despite Pu'er tea being famous). Rather, Wazuka is a tea growing center in and of itself, and is in fact the most revered spot for tea farming in Japan.
There are several reasons why Wazuka is still considered the best of the best for Japanese tea growing. I'll address climactic conditions in depth another time, but for now I think it would be best to understand the history of Wazuka. After all, heritage is deeply valued in Japan. Frankly, one of the main reasons Wazuka is considered so special is because it was always considered special - it's a circular sort of logic that then becomes a self-reinforcing cycle. The place that is judged as making the best tea will attract the best tea-makers, who will further solidify that place's legacy as the best.
Anyways, let's dive into the timeline a bit.
How Wazuka became Japan's tea town.
Farmers have been growing tea in Wazuka for about 800 years. That's more or less how long tea has existed in Japan. In the 12th century, Buddhism was beginning to spread from China through Korea and into Japan. The really dedicated Buddhist monks in Japan would find a way to visit China in order to study with the Zen masters there. It was here that they would have encountered tea, and so it was Buddhist monks who first brought tea seeds back with them.
For a while, tea was only grown in monasteries for the monks. Inevitably, however, tea began to percolate beyond the monastery walls. That led to tea bushes being planted in Uji. it is generally agreed that the first tea field was planted in Harayama - a subsection of Wazuka that still has very attractive, circular tea fields.
Farmers chose this region for a few reasons. Most likely the biggest one was due to its proximity to Kyoto, which throughout much of Japan's history was the country's capital. Additionally, to the northeast of Kyoto lies Mount Hiei, the site of the most important Buddhist monastery at the time. The monk Eisai, who is said to have first introduced tea to Japan, studied here before beginning his own sect of Zen Buddhism. Essentially, Kyoto was the cultural and spiritual epicenter of Japan, so inevitably the first tea (which would have been grown for the elite), was grown nearby.
That said, there are some practical elements about Wazuka that make it particularly appealing for tea-growing. Uji in general and Wazuka in particular experience large temperature swings between day and night. This, combined with the mountainous terrain and Wazuka River, contribute to regular fog accumulating in the valleys. From their experiences with Chinese tea and tea from local monasteries, the growers knew that the most revered tea always came from fog-shrouded mountains. Naturally, this foggy valley seemed a good fit! It's interesting to note that some say Wazuka teas impart a sort of "foggy" taste as a result of these conditions. 
Since then, the reputation of Wazuka tea has only grown. It is precisely because it is so hilly that its production has been limited through the ages. Cultivating a steep hillside takes a lot of work, and even today much of that work has to be done by hand, as machines that automate the process are too unwieldy. Therefore, Wazuka and small-scale, passionate farmers have always gone hand-in-hand - and though the total tea output of Wazuka is quite low, the concentration of small family farms is far greater than other tea growing regions, which are dominated by fewer, larger growers.
During the Edo Period, Wazuka became property of the imperial family, and tea from Wazuka was a tribute gift given to royalty. If nothing else did, this certainly cemented Wazuka's legacy.
What was grown in Wazuka?
Although Wazuka is now known for its matcha production, this was not always the case. For much of its history, tea growers in Uji produced loose leaf teas. Modern matcha as we know it, with its reliance on shading the tea young tea leaves, took a few centuries to develop. In fact, it was because of the naturally foggy conditions of Uji and Wazuka that farmers in the region put the pieces together and had the genius to deliberately shade the tea leaves in an effort to replicate these conditions at will.
Even today, not a huge amount of tencha or matcha is grown in Wazuka. The vast majority of tea grown in Japan is still loose leaf tea like sencha, while matcha remains a well-known but ceremonial beverage that doesn't necessarily slot into the day-to-day lives of Japanese people. This is part of why the Western demand for matcha has created a sort of shortage. Even within Wazuka, most tencha is grown on the right side of the river, while the left side produces more sencha and gyokuro (for reasons I'll address some other time).
All of this is to say that when you can find nice matcha from Wazuka, it remains a rare treat! Maybe not only-for-the-emperor rare, but still special. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention that, if you really wanted to taste the sort of matcha the royal family was sipping back in the day, they wouldn't have had conventional agricultural chemicals and their matcha would have been freshly-milled - so maybe give yourself the royal treatment and check out our freshly-milled, naturally-farmed Wazuka matcha!
Anyways, as always, thanks for reading and happy sipping!
Simon
