About Pick Green
Japan's finest gyokuro, brought straight to Australia.
We're a Tasmanian business with a single focus: importing premium organic gyokuro green tea directly from one family farm in Kagoshima, Japan, and selling it at a fair price.
for 30 years
four generations
no middlemen
Our story
One farm. One obsession.
Pick Green began with a simple goal: bring the best gyokuro from Japan to Australia without the markup. Rather than blend leaves of unknown origin, we buy from a single grower we know and trust.
Every tea we sell is certified organic and comes from Sakamotoen, a family-owned tea garden in Kagoshima that has been making green tea for almost a hundred years. We import it directly and ship it from our home in Tasmania. Nothing in between.
The farm
Sakamotoen, in the volcanic soil of Kagoshima
Sakamotoen sits among the rich volcanic soils and clean mountain air of Kagoshima, in southern Japan. The Sakamoto family has grown green tea here for almost a century, and earned organic certification three decades ago.
It stays a hands-on, family operation: the same people who tend the bushes oversee every harvest, and seal each batch with the farm's own maker's mark.
Organic here means organic. No synthetic chemicals, just natural fertilisers and patient soil-building, tending the land of Kyushu so the farm gives back to its environment as much as it takes.
The tea
Why Sakamotoen gyokuro is special
Gyokuro is prized as the highest grade of Japanese green tea, and it earns that reputation in the shade.
Grown in the shade
Three weeks before harvest, the bushes are covered. A week later a second layer follows, leaving the plants in near-total darkness for the final fortnight. Starved of sunlight, the leaves flood with theanine, the source of gyokuro's deep umami and natural sweetness.
Picked once a year
The harvest happens just once, in early spring. The leaves are steamed, dried and carefully rolled the same day, locking in the vivid green colour and the delicate, slightly sweet flavour that connoisseurs look for.
Rich in antioxidants
Because it is shade-grown, gyokuro carries one of the highest concentrations of EGCG, a catechin regarded as one of the most powerful antioxidants found in plants.
The range, explained
Three ways to drink Sakamotoen
Four grades, one farm
Taste the range.
From the everyday Chamusume to the farm's finest Chameijin, all grown, shaded and finished at Sakamotoen.
Shop the tea