Place · in Fukuoka
Yame
Yame is a stretch of country in southern Fukuoka rather than a single town, running from the flat Chikugo plain up the Yabe river into mountain villages that sit well above it. Both ends carry the Yame name and they grow different tea. The gyokuro the region is famous for comes from the upper end, and the word on the packet does not tell you which end you are holding.
What grows here
Sencha across the whole region, with gyokuro, tencha and kabusecha concentrated in the uplands. Those upland districts, Hoshino, Kurogi and Yabe among them, are known collectively as Okuyame, 'deep Yame', and that word is worth learning because it is the closest thing the region has to a quality zone. Hoshino carries the most weight inside it: a village of small plots in a narrow valley, high enough to fog every morning, whose tea is labelled with its own name alongside the region's.
What to look for
'Yame tea' covers the whole administrative region, plain and mountain alike, so it is an origin statement and not a quality one. Okuyame narrows it to the uplands, a village name like Hoshino narrows it again and Yame dento hon gyokuro, the protected traditional-shading designation, is narrowest of all and a small fraction of the total. Those four labels are a ladder rather than synonyms, and a shop can sell you the bottom rung while its copy describes the top one.
Other places in Fukuoka
- Hoshino
- Ukiha