Ashigara tea

Ashigara Cha is a collective name for tea produced within Kanagawa Prefecture, including Sagamihara, Minamiashigara, Odawara, Hadano, Atsugi, Aikawa, Yamakita, Matsuda, Yugawara, Manazuru, Kaisei, Nakai, and Kiyokawa. The list gives the tea a regional shape along the Tanzawa and Hakone foothills rather than tying it to a single town.

Its local character rests on those municipality names, Kanagawa-grown leaves, mountain weather, and everyday preparation. When taste and aroma are tied to Ashigara Cha, the phrase points back to a shared tea area spread across several communities.

The Tanzawa-Hakone foothill area has conditions suited to tea cultivation. From the end of the year to around February, the seasonal wind called Tanzawa-oroshi carries cold air down the mountain skirts and creates sharp differences between day and night temperatures; those natural conditions sit behind the taste and aroma associated with Ashigara Cha.

The tea’s sensory setting starts with western Kanagawa’s mountain terrain. Foothills, cold wind, temperature shifts, and tea leaves give the name a physical place before any larger cultural language is needed.

The modern beginning of Ashigara Cha is commonly traced to the years after the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake. Tea cultivation was introduced in former Shimizu Village in Ashigarakami District, now Yamakita Town, as an industrial recovery measure for mountain villages that had suffered heavy damage.

Yamakita gives the tea a grounded starting point. Disaster recovery, mountain-village work, tea planting, and the growth of a Kanagawa tea-producing area all meet in that place name.

Ashigara Cha has a clear spring rhythm. In 2024, first-tea picking began on April 26, and general descriptions place the new-tea season around May. Late spring and early summer give the tea a calendar: picking begins, new tea appears, and the year’s first cups move toward everyday drinking.

The seasonal arc works best through concrete dates and field work. April 26 marks the start of first picking in 2024, while May gives the name its familiar new-tea moment.

The Kanagawa Prefecture JA Tea Industry Center in Yamakita gives the production route a visible form. It receives tea directly from 33 aracha factories across Kanagawa, then finishes the tea at an adjacent factory; finished teas can also be tasted at the site.

That route turns a shared regional name into a working system. Tea farmers, aracha factories, the Yamakita finishing factory, and Ashigara Cha GAP farm practices connect cultivation, processing, and shared handling across the production area.

Ashigara Cha also lives in ordinary preparation. Leaves can be brewed as hot green tea, and teabags are used for hot or iced drinking. One cold-brew method uses a 5-gram teabag in 0.5 liters of water for about 20 minutes, while another approach begins with cold water and follows with a later hot infusion.

The tea appears in sweets as well as cups. Ashigara Cha soft serve, Ashigara Cha Mont Blanc, and Ashigara Cha ice cream carry the tea’s aroma into desserts, giving the name a place in everyday treats as well as brewed tea.

A 100th-anniversary ceremony for Ashigara Cha took place in Yamakita Town, with awards for a tea competition and tea-garden competition, commendations for contributors, and the announcement of Ashigara Tea Promotion Vision 2025. The event brought producers, tea gardens, and regional promotion into one setting.

The milestone gives continuity a visible form: a Yamakita venue, award ceremonies, recognized contributors, tea gardens, and a shared plan for the next phase. Ashigara Cha carries forward through that producer community and through the next season’s tea work.