The highly anticipated 74th National Tea Competition of Japan has come and gone, leaving the results of this prestigious event. While the number of participating prefectures seemed to be significantly small as compared to normal, the event itself was able to take place despite this pandemic. I've blogged some predictions a few weeks back - so it's my time to reflect on my guesses.

Here we'll be doing an analysis on the most recent event which took place a few days back in Aug 2020.

You can read about the event and results here. This page is more of a summary of thoughts based on the results.

First, I'd like to touch on the individual awards.

I actually won't look too deep into the individual awards, as I feel the Area Awards are much more insightful. The way I look at it is that the Area Awards implies the overall quality of the area brand for the particular category of tea on a particular year.

Maybe the climate was better. Maybe overall technology and skill has improved. These are probably factors for not only the award winning tea, but other tea as well.

It's a great indicator when thinking about buying tea.

On the other hand, the individual award is really dependent on the individual. Especially for those of us living outside of Japan, we may not have too many opportunities in trying out the award winning tea anyways. These results seem a bit distant.

That said, there is one result I'd like to bring attention too. This is relevant to Tealife to be specific, as it's one of their partners.

This Koyama-san is the president of Marukyu Koyamaen, who's tea we carry in Tealife's e-shop. Yes, you can drink the tea from this award winning maker of tea here!!

They had won the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries award (which is the #1st place finish for the individual awards) for the Tencha category (which is Matcha).

It is indeed crazy as they were able to secure their 31st recognition for their award. Their unbelievable track record seems to still grow... It's just really incredible.

Congratulations to the Marukyu Koyamaen family!

Now that we've quickly zoomed passed the individual awards - we'll go into the different area awards. Let's go one by one.

The Futsu-Sencha 10kg category is awarded to the best Sencha that is harvested through machine picking. Since it is machine picking, the advantage goes to areas with vast and flat farmlands. This is why this category has been historically dominated by Kagoshima.

Kagoshima is "home court advantage" for this year, so really not too much surprises here.

The Futsu-Sencha 4kg category is awarded to the best Sencha that is harvested through hand picking. The 4kg and 10kg categories were separated to foster the growth and improvement of both skills.

This award has historically gone to Shizuoka. The 1st and 2nd place winners are no surprises in that sense. However, the 3rd place went to Minamikyushu City (home of Chiran-cha)!

At least out of the past 9 years, this is the first time Kagoshima had won the award. This is a significant surprise!

Now I'll skip the Fukamushi-sencha as the results are all Shizuoka - which is the norm each year.

Personally - the results of this category was the biggest surprise.

Yame city of Fukuoka beat out Kyoto for the 1st place area award! This is a HUGE change!!

How is this significant?

Looking back at the results since 2012, every single contest had Kyoto (Ujicha) as the number one area award for Kabuse-cha. Maizuru city won 6, while Ayabe City won 2. So this 1st pace finish by Yamecha breaks the long-time stronghold by Ujicha.

Furthermore, Yame had never been a significant competition these past 9 years.

In the past nine years - Yame City had never one an area award in the Kabuse-cha category a single time!!

It was a super dark horse in that sense but won the top award. Congratulations to Yame!

This actually isn't the only surprise here. There's another pleasant surprise.

Kirishima City from Kagoshima slid into 3rd place! Congratulations!

This is equally huge. This is the first time a product from Kagoshima had won any area awards this past 9 years. Their extra added motivation as the hosting city of this event may have helped. Either way, It's an amazing feat by Kirishima City.

Nothing surprising about Gyokuro. This category is owned by Yamecha. They one the 1st place this year as well.

So this year Yame was able to take home the 1st price for both shaded loose leaf tea.

Better try them!!

The last type we'll look into is the Tencha category.

Nothing too surprising for this category either. The 1st and 2nd place finishes are by the usual - Uji city of Kyoto and Jyouyou city of Kyoto. They've been trading 1st and 2nd between themselves for the past decade.

The last type we'll look into is the Tencha category.

Nothing too surprising for this category either. The 1st and 2nd place finishes are by the usual - Uji city of Kyoto and Jyouyou city of Kyoto. They've been trading 1st and 2nd between themselves for the past decade.

First we must thank the event organizers to pull this off despite this situation. Thank you very much.

The 74th tea competition was really interesting in that - especially Yame tea is shaking things up.

I'm very interested in trying Yame tea out. Perhaps Tealife will allow me to do a Yame-cha tasting blog!