A tea-growing region with a history dating back a thousand years, and Japan's third-largest tea producer.

Mie Prefecture, on Japan’s Pacific coast, is the country’s third-largest tea-producing region and the leading producer of kabusecha-style shaded teas. It is there, on a family-run farm in the northern part of the prefecture, that the Okumidori used in all of our matcha is grown.

Where is the Mie Prefectural Government located?




Mie stretches along the Pacific coast of Honshū Island, between Nagoya and Osaka, on the eastern edge of the Kansai region. It is a land of hills, rivers, and rice paddies nestled against the Suzuka Mountains, with a coastline indented by bays and peninsulas to the south. In Japan, everyone knows Mie for three things: the Grand Shrine of Ise, Matsusaka beef, and the sea, with its pearls and pearl divers. Few people know that it has also been a land of tea for over a thousand years.

Ise, Japan's most sacred shrine, less than an hour from our fields



The Ise Shrine (Ise Jingū) is the holiest site in Shintoism, dedicated to Amaterasu, the sun goddess from whom the imperial family claims descent. For over 1,300 years, its wooden structures have been dismantled and rebuilt identically every twenty years, following the same rituals: it is the same shrine, and it is always new. A Japanese proverb states that everyone should visit it at least once in their lifetime, and the Ise pilgrimage has been, since the Edo period, the country’s most popular long-distance journey^[1].

Our matcha fields are located less than an hour’s drive from this shrine. This is no small detail: for centuries, the Ise region has been a hub of travel and trade where the local tea, Ise-cha, became well-known to pilgrims from all over Japan.

A tea-growing region since the year 900

Tea cultivation in Mie is one of the oldest in Japan. Prefectural records trace its origins to the Engi era, around the year 900, at Jōrin-ji Temple in what is now the city of Yokkaichi, where a monk was already growing tea and had introduced it to the local residents^[2]. In the early Kamakura period, the monk Myōe is said to have planted seeds in Ise-Kawakami that he had received from the Zen master Eisai—the very same man who had brought tea back from China in 1191^[3].

In the early Meiji era, Mie had more than 4,000 hectares of tea plantations—more than Shizuoka—peaking at 4,419 hectares in 1892, the year the first official statistics were compiled^[2]. Mie is also the birthplace of Ōtani Kahei (1845–1933), a native of Matsusaka, who founded the National Tea Industry Organization and was nicknamed “the tea saint” for his work on quality^[3].

For a long time, however, tea from Mie Prefecture was sold in bulk to be blended with tea from better-known regions. To restore its identity, the prefecture’s cooperatives registered the collective trademark “Ise-cha” (Ise tea) in April 2007, which today refers to all green teas produced in the prefecture^[4].

Why is Mie a tea-growing region?




Mie enjoys a temperate, humid climate, well-drained soil, and a terrain that protects the plots. Production is split between two regions^[3][5]:

• Hokusei, in the north (Yokkaichi, Suzuka, Kameyama, Inabe), on the gentle hills at the foot of the Suzuka Mountains: approximately 70% of the prefecture’s production, and the heart of its specialty, kabusecha, a tea shaded for about fifteen days before harvest, with a vibrant green color and a distinctly mellow flavor.
  
  
• Nansei, in the south (Matsusaka, Watarai, Ōdai, Taki), in the valleys of the Miyagawa and Kushida rivers: sloping and riverside plots, renowned for their sencha and fukamushi sencha (deep-steamed sencha).
  
  

With approximately 5,000 metric tons of raw tea produced annually on some 2,600 hectares, Mie ranks third in Japan, behind Shizuoka and Kagoshima. For kabusecha, it ranks first, accounting for nearly 60% of the national volume^[2][6]. This shade-growing technique, which has been established for decades, is a clear advantage for matcha, which relies on the same principle taken to the next level.

It is in this region, in the northern part of the prefecture near Yokkaichi—where it all began eleven centuries ago—that we work with an independent grower, the heir to a family-owned plantation that has been passed down for over 60 years. On a farm spanning more than 20 hectares, he cultivates the Okumidori variety—the source of our matcha—which is shaded for three to four weeks before the year’s first harvest.

Further Reading

Matcha cultivars

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Mie, in fact, has a direct connection to the history of this cultivar: the prefecture was one of the trial sites selected as early as the 1970s by the National Tea Research Institute, and began planting it in 1999, alongside Kyoto, to spread out the harvest period^[7]. Yabukita, however, remains the dominant variety in the region, accounting for more than 80% of the total area; Okumidori remains a choice for discerning producers there.

The Ama, the Women of the Sea



You can't talk about Mie without mentioning its ama, literally “women of the sea.” For over 1,300 years, along the coasts of Toba and Shima, women have been free-diving—without tanks—to gather abalones, turbot, sea urchins, and seaweed. Archival records mention abalones shipped from here to the capital as early as 745, and shells found at prehistoric sites along the coast suggest that the practice dates back even further^[8].

Toba and Shima are now home to about half of Japan’s ama, and this women’s tradition—passed down from mother to daughter—was the first in the country to be designated as an intangible cultural heritage of the prefecture in 2014, before being added to Japan’s National Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2019^[8][9]. It was also to these women that Kōkichi Mikimoto, a native of Toba, turned when he invented the cultured pearl in 1893: it was the ama who dived to plant and harvest the pearl oysters.

These women reveal something about Mie: a relationship with nature characterized by patience, precise movements, and respect for the seasons. It is the same spirit found in the tea fields, a few dozen kilometers away.

Mie vs. Uji: What the Label Doesn't Say




Uji, in Kyoto Prefecture, is the most famous region for Japanese matcha: it is there that shade-grown tea cultivation and the tea ceremony developed, and the name “Uji” is almost a guarantee of quality in and of itself.

What few people know is what the term actually encompasses. The official definition of “Uji tea,” established by the Kyoto Prefecture Tea Industry Council, permits leaves grown in four prefectures: Kyoto, Nara, Shiga, and Mie, provided that the tea is processed and packaged in Kyoto by a Kyoto-based company. There is no minimum proportion of Kyoto leaves : a 50% requirement had been considered in 2003 but was abandoned due to a lack of sufficient quantities of Kyoto leaves; the adopted text simply states that Kyoto is “given priority”^[10]. And for good reason: Kyoto produces about 2,600 metric tons of tea per year, while Mie produces twice that amount^[6].

In other words, a significant portion of what is sold under the name “Uji” is grown elsewhere, and Mie—with its deep-green, shade-grown teas—is one of the regions that contributes to the Uji designation. Mie may not be as well-known as Uji, but it produces leaves that Uji is happy to use.

One important detail to note about matcha in particular: contrary to popular belief, Kyoto is no longer the leading producer of tencha, the leaf used to make matcha. Since 2020, Kagoshima has led in terms of volume, accounting for 38% of national production in 2023, compared to 23% for Kyoto^[6]. At Milia Matcha, there’s no question about it: our matcha is 100% from Mie Prefecture, 100% Okumidori, sourced from a single farm.

Mie vs. Kagoshima: Two Scales




Kagoshima, in the very south of Japan on the island of Kyūshū, became the country’s leading tea-producing prefecture in 2024, as well as the leading producer of tencha^[6]. Its model is large-scale: vast plots of flat land, highly mechanized harvesting and shading, and production organized for volume and export, approaching industrial-scale operations. This is what enables it to supply a significant portion of the matcha sold worldwide.

Mie is at the other end of the spectrum: production there is more fragmented, driven by medium-sized family farms on hillsides where the plots are still largely worked by hand. That is the model we have chosen, working with the family that has been growing our Okumidori for over 60 years.

Milia Matcha Matcha: One Region, One Family

At Milia Matcha, all of our matcha comes from the same family of growers, who have been based near Yokkaichi for over 60 years. This direct and ongoing connection to a single region ensures complete traceability—from the field to the can—and consistent flavor from one harvest to the next.

Sources



^[1] Ise Jingū, the shrine’s official website, and the Japan National Tourism Organization: The Ise Pilgrimage (O-Ise-mairi) and the 20-year reconstruction (shikinen sengū). https://www.isejingu.or.jp/en/

^[2] Mie Prefectural Government, Agriculture Bureau. Tea in Mie Prefecture: History, Cultivated Area, and Production. https://www.pref.mie.lg.jp/NOUSAN/HP/77019045892.htm

^[3] MAFF, Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries. Ise-cha, Nippon Dentō Shoku Zukan(Encyclopedia of Traditional Foods). https://www.maff.go.jp/j/keikaku/syokubunka/traditional-foods/menu/ise_tya.html

^[4] Japan Patent Office (JPO), regional collective trademarks. “Ise-cha,” registered on April 13, 2007.

^[5] JA Zennoh Mie. Types of Ise-cha (and their production areas). https://www.zennoh.or.jp/me/product/tea/type/

^[6] MAFF (2024). The State of the Tea Industry: Production by Prefecture and Tea Type, 2023 Data. https://www.maff.go.jp/j/seisan/tokusan/cha/

^[7] Yagi, C., Ikeda, N., & Sato, D. (2010). Characteristics of eight Japanese tea cultivars. Fruits and Nuts, F_N-15. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, CTAHR.

^[8] Mie Prefecture, Cultural Heritage. 海女習俗 (the customs of the ama of Toba and Shima). https://www.pref.mie.lg.jp/common/04/000063473.htm

^[9] Japan Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japanese Heritage. Toba and Shima: Towns Where You Can Meet Ama Divers (2019). https://japan-heritage.bunka.go.jp/ja/stories/story073/

^[10] Kyoto Prefecture Tea Industry Council (京都府茶業会議所). Official Definition of Uji Tea (2004) and “Uji-cha Q&A.” https://ujicha.or.jp/knowledge/qa/