We import Japanese tea and teaware, and this is where you can buy it. Green Tea Japan is the shop; J-PORT is the company behind it, importing from Japan since 2001.
What we do
We buy tea in Japan and sell it in Europe. A large part goes to shops, cafés and tea rooms, and this site is where we sell the same tea in household quantities.
That matters for one practical reason: the tea here is not a small range bought from a European wholesaler. It is what we import ourselves, from the same houses, in the same season.
Who we buy from
Some of our tea comes from producers who grow it themselves, like Otsuka in Kakegawa, five generations working land their founder cleared in 1871. Some comes from tea houses that buy leaf from growers in their region and finish it in their own factory, like Shohokuen in Uji, making tea since 1645.
How we choose
Slowly, and by tasting. Building a relationship with a Japanese producer takes years, and judging whether a tea is worth carrying takes more than one season. That is unglamorous work and it is most of the job.
We travel to Japan every year to taste, to visit the gardens and to plan the coming harvest together with the people who make our tea.
What we tell you, and what we leave out
We say who made each tea, which region it comes from, and how to brew it. Where a producer does not disclose something, such as the exact cultivar in a blend, we leave the field empty rather than fill it with a guess.
We do not describe our tea as hand-picked, because almost all Japanese tea is harvested by machine and has been for decades. That is not a shortcut, it is how a modern tea garden works.
And we write about how tea tastes rather than about what it does for you. There are European rules on health claims, and honestly we find the taste more interesting.
Where we are
Goudenrijderhof 2a 5551 VJ Valkenswaard The Netherlands
Email: webshop@greenteajapan.com Phone: +31 6 2544 0797