Healthy soil means incredible tea

Sakamoto's soil has gone viral (again) with over 7 million views (and counting) on our Instagram and Youtube.

Clearly, people are super into soil! So we wanted to share its story...

The Sakamoto story

The Sakamoto brothers, Masato and Shuichiro, were raised in the rural region of Kagoshima, Japan, where they still run their family tea farm. Surrounded by deep forests, far from heavy industries, this is the remote southern tip of Japan. An active volcano in the region makes the soil remarkably fertile.

Their family has grown green tea there for generations. And yet, despite growing and drinking delicious - and supposedly healthy - green tea, members of their family, including their mother, died from cancer. They looked around at all the chemicals being used and decided to switch completely to organic farming. Our founder Henrietta resonated with the family's story because of her own experience with cancer. She has had cancer three times and lost both her parents to it. For Henrietta and the Sakamoto family, clean, organic tea isn't some marketing wash - it's a personal mission. People's health and lives are on the line.

Pesticides and fertilisers in Japan

After World War II, industrial pesticides spread rapidly across Japan, increasing food production while harming the environment.

Shading green tea - as is the case for matchas and gyokuros - attracts microbes and bugs to the cooler, humid conditions. As well as cutting labour costs, industrial herbicides and pesticides have become the status quo for Japanese tea farms to preserve crop and yield, especially for shaded green tea.

Shading tea plants at the Sakamoto Tea Garden

But the Sakamotos also knew about ancient traditions of making green tea without dangerous, modern chemicals. They knew it was not only possible but had been done for millennia. They worked tirelessly and with lower yields- but they found the future of Japanese green tea planted within its past. And they have achieved incredible success - healthier soil for a healthier humanity and the most incredible flavour.

The Sakamoto family made a decision - to put the health of their customers - and family - above profitability and high yield. Shuichiro and his family came up with alternative solutions to the industrial pesticides, insecticides and fertilisers that were causing harm to the environment, the flora and fauna and potentially tea drinkers. The Sakamoto Farm is a family farm - daughter, sons, sisters and sons-in-law all work and live on the farm, focusing on quality over quantity. Establishing the incredible soil celebrated in the viral reel took decades of hard work.

A rare harvest

The Sakamoto farm only harvests once a year at the beginning of spring. The leaves that are pruned from the plant throughout the remainder of the year are used to make an organic fertiliser and are returned to the soil.

Tea is the base of the nutrient-rich natural fertiliser, also containing vegetable waste from local organic farms and waste fish from the local fishing industry, closing gaps in the life cycle of agricultural production. Since their fertiliser yields such astounding results, they began to share it with other local farmers, while imparting their knowledge of organic farming practices to upend the norm of agrichemical use. They have encouraged and converted many of their neighbours to organic agriculture.

What about weeding? And water run-off?

People have commented and asked us how the farm goes about keeping weeds down without chemicals. Shuichiro Sakamoto showed us how they do it. Because the soil is so soft at the top, they remove the young weeds and shake off any loose soil. Weeding is done by hand, effortlessly: you can gently pull them out, without damaging or disrupting the complex network of growth happening beneath the surface. And because the soil is so soft, water penetrates the soil; it doesn't run off - it runs in, down to the roots. They also carefully nestle each new tea plant in 2 metres deep. This allows for the tea plant's roots to fully develop in the soil mix.

The farm doesn't use turbines or fans (like many tea farms in cold environments) to blow off icy air in the winter. Instead, they carefully spray the plants with water, so that the ice freezes around the leaf - meaning that the leaf itself will never go below zero degrees.

When you buy our karigane or gyokuro you're not only drinking some of the most delicious tea in the world - you're supporting a revolution in soil and farming.

If you have any questions about the Sakamotos (or any tea questions at all) do please get in touch.

All the best,