What is Hon-Gyokuro, one of the rarest types of Japanese green tea in the world?

I must confess, I am not exactly a tea connoisseur. The only type of green tea I am familiar with is the bottled Pokka Jasmine Green Tea or the standard variety served in most sushi restaurants. So, when TWG Tea invited me to a tasting of Hon-Gyokuro, one of the rarest Japanese green teas in the world, it felt like I had discovered a whole new world of flavours.

What exactly is Hon-Gyokuro? Gyokuro is a premium, high-quality variety of Japanese green tea. The name “Gyokuro” translates to “jade dew”.  The prefix of “hon”, which translates to “authentic”, is only given to Gyokuro that has been grown in the traditional way by a master artisan.

“Hon-Gyokuro is made by a traditional cultivation method,” shared Reiko Heda, Japan’s business development director at TWG Tea. “The big difference between regular Gyokuro and Hon-Gyokuro is the material used to cover the tea plantation. For regular Gyokuro, they use a black synthetic fabric. But for Hon-Gyokuro, it is covered by a natural material called ‘komo’ in Japanese, which is made from rice straw.”

TWG Tea is the only global tea brand to offer Hon-Gyokuro outside of Japan, the company said. It has a longstanding partnership with a tea plantation in Okabe, Shizuoka Prefecture, Central Japan’s most famous region for tea. Here, the altitude, climate and terroir create the perfect natural conditions for tea growing and harvesting.