What Cultivar Is Your Matcha? Why Most Brands Can't Answer
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It is a simple question. What plant variety did this matcha come from?
Most brands selling matcha in the UK cannot answer it. Not because the information is difficult to find, but because the supply chain behind most matcha products does not go back far enough to know. The matcha was sourced from a wholesaler. The wholesaler blended multiple cultivars. The cultivar information was never part of the transaction.
That absence matters more than most people realise. Cultivar is one of the most fundamental determinants of what matcha tastes like and what it contains. It is set at the plant level, before any cultivation decision has been made. And it is the detail that separates a brand that genuinely knows its product from one that is relying on grade labels and marketing language to do the work.
What a cultivar is
A cultivar is a specific plant variety, selectively bred for particular traits and registered with Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. Registration takes decades. Japan has over 150 registered tea cultivars, each with a distinct flavour profile, a different response to shade-growing, a different yield, a different budding time. They are not interchangeable.
Think of it the way you would think about grape varieties in wine. Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon come from the same species. They produce completely different wines. The same logic applies to tea. Yabukita and Okumidori come from the same Camellia sinensis species. In the bowl, they are recognisably different drinks.
Why it determines what you taste
The flavour ceiling of any matcha is set by the cultivar first. Shade-growing amplifies what is already in the plant. First flush timing captures the compounds at their annual peak. Stone-milling preserves them. But none of those steps can add character that the plant does not have. They concentrate and preserve what is already there.
This is why two ceremonial grade matcha products can taste completely different even when every other variable appears identical. The plant is different. The flavour profile, the L-theanine concentration, the EGCG level, the depth of umami, all of it starts with the cultivar.
Why Okumidori
Yabukita accounts for approximately 64% of Japan's registered tea cultivar plantings. It became dominant because of its reliability, consistent yield and cold resistance. It is an excellent cultivar when grown and processed correctly. It produces clean, sweet, umami-rich matcha that sets the standard for the category.
Okumidori accounts for approximately 4% of national plantings. It is rarer because it is more demanding. It matures later than Yabukita, requires more precise harvest timing, and produces a lower yield. Farmers grow it because in the right conditions: cool, high-altitude terrain, significant temperature variation between day and night it produces something that Yabukita does not. Deeper umami. A longer finish. A complexity that sits differently in the cup.
Master's Reserve is Okumidori from Wazuka, Kyoto. The steep hillside terrain and the altitude of Wazuka are precisely the conditions that draw the best out of Okumidori. The combination of cultivar and region is what makes the product specific rather than generic. It is why we chose it after testing hundreds of samples, and why we have not changed it.
The question worth asking
Next time you buy matcha, ask the brand what cultivar it is. If they cannot tell you, or if the answer is a blend of undisclosed varieties, the grade label is carrying claims the supply chain cannot support.
A brand that knows its cultivar will tell you. The ones that do not know will change the subject.
Master's Reserve is Okumidori. From Wazuka. First flush, 21 days pre-harvest shading, stone-milled to 10 microns, JAS certified organic. Every detail is there because it can be verified.
Master's Reserve is available now, delivered across the United Kingdom.