May 17, 2024
Ikkoen Chaho of Nagoya, Aichi
Ikkoen Chaho is a tiny tea shop founded in 1947 by Hiroshi Mitsuo in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture. Now it is run by the son of Hiroshi and his wife, Chie Mitsuo. We visited their shop in March, which has been in the same building since it opened, and met the gracious Chie Mitsuo, who showed us their incredible facilities for milling matcha.
Ikkoen Chaho is an anomaly in Cultivate’s collection, mainly because they do not farm their own tea. Instead, they purchase high quality tencha from Uji, Kyoto that they use to mill their own matcha.
Their shop is home to 3 traditional matcha mills that they use to make tencha from Uji into matcha. These machines have been used and maintained here since the shop opened in 1947. They are beautiful pieces of equipment, each housed in a wooden case and run by a steady conveyor belt.
For how small their shop and production is, Ikkoen Chaho are surprisingly well known in the matcha industry in Japan, and a name that many Sado teachers quietly and assuredly recommend.
This is all to say that the matcha from Ikkoen Chaho is very precious; the 3 stone mills produce roughly 30 grams of matcha per hour.
