A tea that really needs no introduction, Hime Fuki, the multiple awarded, highly acclaimed, Japanese black tea organically cultivated in Makurazaki, Kagoshima, Japan, made from the excellent Japanese cultivar named Benifuki, and harvested by hand (known as Tezumi in Japanese) with only the young leaves being handpicked at the optimum timing in spring. The cultivar, handpicking, processing, and natural oxidation of the tea leaves are the important factors that ultimately give this particular organic black tea its fresh flowery aroma, soft rich taste, and beautiful ruby color!

Awarded Multiple Times...
Hime Fuki has been awarded a gold star award multiple times through multiple years at the Great Taste Awards in the UK! Gold star honors at the Great Taste Awards are considered a very high honor and are only awarded after rigorous blind-tasting by up to 20 expert judges in the food and tea industry. Needless to say, winning such prestigious awards is an absolutely amazing achievement by such a small organic black t ea grower from Makurazaki and one which left him jumping for joy! It really underlines the quality of organic black tea that can be produced in that particular region of Japan and has firmly put Makurazaki back on the black tea map where it surely has always deserved to be!

- In 2009, Hime Fuki gained the very prestigious Great Taste 3 Star Gold Award which is the award given by the guild of fine food in the UK. The 3 star gold award, which the guild gives the quotation of In 2010, Hime Fuki gained the one star gold award managing to continue the legacy of this GREAT organic Japanese black tea!
- Once again in 2011 Hime Fuki took the accolades at the Great Taste Awards by receiving a two star gold award! It has now received the prestigious and highly acclaimed gold star awards at the Great Taste Awards three years on a row!
- 2012 sees Hime Fuki awarded once more! An acclaimed Japanese black tea if ever there was one!

100% Handpicked Tea Leaves...
Although most tea in Japan is harvested by machines, all tea leaves for this organic black tea have been picked by hand with each tea leaf being checked for quality by eye and plucked with the picker's fingertips. The annual yield of the plantation is therefore quite low meaning that this black tea is very limited, but is ultimately superior in quality.

Makurazaki Japanese Black Tea...
If you know your time-line on Japanese black tea, you'll know that Makurazaki in Kagoshima prefecture was one of the main cultivation regions of high quality black tea in Japan in the 1960s. However, in 1971 restrictions on black tea imports were lifted in Japan which led to a mass of cheap low quality import black tea flooding the Japanese black tea market. Already sensing what was going to happen, most black tea farmers in Japan at that time swiftly switched over to producing green tea leaving the Japanese domestic black tea market to slowly dwindle away. Thankfully, for a few Japanese black tea farmers in Makurazaki, that didn't stop their passion and desire to cultivate black tea because they knew what they were making had a very special taste (The multiple award winning Hime Fuki Japanese black tea is evidence of that). Therefore, still today there are black tea farmers, including some of the older original farmers, that are still cultivating and innovating the production of high quality organic black tea in the region! It is due to their efforts that it remains possible to enjoy the high quality taste of organic Makurazaki black tea!