Japanese Black Tea Wakoucha Benifuuki - Option: 50 g

Wakoucha is a nickname recently given to black teas made in Japan ("Wa" means Japanese, and "Koucha" means black tea). Even though most Japanese people have forgotten nowadays, Japanese black teas in fact have over 130 years of history as an export product. Japanese black teas were once a major trade item of Japan from mid-Meiji era to mid-Showa era (1880-1950). The gross production amount per year exceeded 8500 tons at the peak. Though economic growth after WWII and accompanying inflation made Japanese black teas non-competitive in the global market, some growers retained black-tea manufacturing and recently succeeded in reviving the production renaming it as "wakoucha". Almost all recent wakoucha target the domestic tea market and it steadily increases their fans.

Benifuuki was the result of crossbreeding Benihomare with MakuraCd86 in Makurazaki city, Kagoshima prefecture, 1965. The right seedling was selected many years later, and it was registered in 1993. The MakuraCd86 tea plant comes from the Indian Darjeeling region. Benihomare is of the assamica variety (mostly found in India and Sri Lanka), while MakuraCd86 is of the sinensis variety (popular in China and Japan).  Benifuuki is a hybrid tea plant. It makes a high quality black tea, with a mellow taste and excellent aroma.