Profile of Shuichiro Sakamoto

Sakamoto-san at Sakamoto Tea Farms in Shibushi, Kagoshima believes more people around the world will drink green tea for their health.
Because our health is the most important for our life.
And what we eat influences our health.

Sakamoto-san is the 3rd generation of Sakamoto Tea Farms.
When his family started the tea farm, it was advertised that Japanese tea works on cancer.
His family was proud of tea making because they believed their work contributed to people’s health.
However, his mom, who loved drinking tea, and his sister were passed away from cancer.
He was so devasted, because the tea they made, couldn’t save his beloved family’s lives.

Sakamoto-san determined to make teas that work for people’s health, by taking time and care.
He cut his tea fields in half to focus on organic gyokuro tea farming.
He realized good fertilizers to grow healthy tea trees were not sold on the market.
So he decided to make his own fermented organic fertilizer by obtaining various materials.
He aimed to feed microorganisms in soil with his fertilizer.

The philosophy of his agriculture is ‘Circulation’.
As we live and eat, we make garbage and waste.
His farming brings the garbage back to his farm and changes it to the energy source for tea trees to grow.
If we take it out from the earth, we should bring it back to the earth.
If we stay in this circulation, our lives and our health will be maintained.
“Chemical fertilizers and pesticides are used for conventional farming as much as wanted.
That farming keeps taking out and nothing bringing back to the earth.”
Sakamoto-san claims.

His tea fields are very soft.
The length of his tea trees’ roots is much longer than other tea farms.
When you stick a bamboo stick into the ground, it will go more than 4.92 ft (1.5 m) deep.

He makes only a one-time harvest in a year and does not step into his tea fields often.
This way, he can make tea fields close to the natural environment.
The natural environment helps microorganisms to grow and actively work in the soil,
and healthy soil makes healthy tea trees that lead to healthy tea leaves.

He makes his teas with special care at his factory where the facility is almost a part of his body.
He is building a new factory and we expect further quality and tastes enhancement of his teas.

Sakamoto-san keeps looking for new cultivars to meet customers’ palates.
He now grows Saemidori, Haruto, Seimei, Okumidori, Yabukita, Kirari cultivars.

Aiming to make people across the globe healthier,
Sakamoto-san is working hard to make his teas more tasteful and healthy.

 

Check Sakamoto-san’s Tea Products – Gyokuro, Matcha, Karigane