Updated August 25, 2026 · Cultivation figures from Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (2026). Prices collected August 24, 2026 from each brand’s official online store. No brand paid to appear here.
More matcha tins print a cultivar name every year — Okumidori, Samidori, Saemidori, Yabukita, Asahi — and almost nothing in English explains what they are. Search “okumidori matcha” and you get twenty shops selling it and no page telling you what it is.
Start with what the word means. Cultivars are cultivated varieties of the tea plant, Camellia sinensis, bred like grape or apple varieties, and Japan grows well over a hundred of them. Which one is in your tin affects color, sweetness, and how the leaf responds to shading — the process that makes matcha matcha. And it is not a marketing flourish: Japanese government statistics show matcha country plants a visibly different set of cultivars than the rest of Japan. Nationally, one cultivar (Yabukita) covers 64% of tea acreage. In Kyoto — home of Uji matcha — it covers 49%, and two cultivars almost nobody outside the matcha world grows take up nearly a quarter of the prefecture.
That gap is the most useful thing on this page, because it means a cultivar name isn’t decoration. It’s a signal about what the farm was planted for.
Japan’s tea acreage, by cultivar
This table comes from Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), published in its 2026 tea sector briefing — the share of tea acreage each cultivar occupies, nationally and in three major producing prefectures:
| Cultivar (maturity) | Kyoto | Kagoshima | Shizuoka | Japan overall |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yabukita (mid-season) | 49% | 28% | 86% | 64% |
| Okumidori (late) | 13% | 5% | 1% | 4% |
| Samidori (mid-season) | 10% | — | 0% | 1% |
| Saemidori (early) | 1% | 16% | 1% | 6% |
| Yutakamidori (early) | — | 26% | 0% | 7% |
| Sayamakaori (early-mid) | 1% | — | 3% | 2% |
| Other | 26% | 25% | 9% | 16% |
Source: MAFF, “Current State of Tea” (July 2026 edition), cultivar composition by producing region, ministry survey for fiscal 2025.
The table repays reading in three passes, from most to least useful to a shopper.
Yabukita is Japanese tea, statistically speaking. Two-thirds of the country’s tea acreage is one cultivar, selected in Shizuoka in the mid-20th century. In Shizuoka itself, 86% — practically a monoculture. If a tin says nothing about cultivar, Yabukita is the base-rate guess.
Kyoto is the outlier, and matcha is why. Yabukita drops to 49% there, while Okumidori (13%) and Samidori (10%) — which are 4% and 1% nationally — take a quarter of the prefecture between them. These are the cultivars associated with tencha, the shade-grown leaf that becomes matcha. Kyoto didn’t plant them for sencha; it planted them for the product it’s famous for.
Kagoshima complicates the story, usefully. Its fields are dominated by early cultivars (Yutakamidori 26%, Saemidori 16%) suited to a warm southern climate and early harvests — and MAFF’s prefecture profiles nonetheless rank Kagoshima first in the country for tencha production, with Kyoto second and Shizuoka third. Which is why so much American matcha lists Kagoshima as its origin, and why the cultivar signal has limits: Kyoto’s fields were replanted over generations around matcha, so its cultivar mix broadcasts that history, while Kagoshima built a large modern tencha industry on top of a cultivar base shared with its sencha production. In Kyoto, the cultivar tells you what the field was for. In Kagoshima, you need the label to tell you.
So when a tin names Okumidori, it is naming a cultivar that occupies 4% of Japan’s tea acreage nationally and concentrates in matcha country. That is information you can act on. “Ceremonial grade,” as we’ve documented at length, is not.
The cultivars you’ll actually see on a tin
Below are the five that appear most often on matcha sold in the US, with what growers and sellers consistently say about each. We don’t run taste tests, so treat the flavor column as the industry’s collective description rather than our verdict.
Yabukita — Japan’s default. Registered in the 1950s and now 64% of national acreage. Bred for sencha and grown everywhere, so it is the most familiar profile — sellers describe it as balanced, grassy, straightforwardly “green tea.” In matcha it appears mostly in blends and in tins that don’t name a cultivar at all.
Okumidori, whose name means “deep green,” is the late-maturing cultivar that makes up 13% of Kyoto’s acreage against 4% nationally. Its harvest window is practically useful: because it ripens after Yabukita, a farm growing both can stagger picking and give each field full attention. Sellers describe it as sweet and low in astringency, and it is the most common named cultivar in our price dataset — 17 of the 38 cultivar-labeled products.
Samidori — a Uji cultivar, 10% of Kyoto’s acreage and 1% nationally. That ratio makes it about as Kyoto-specific as a tea plant gets. It appears on premium tins, often in the koicha (thick tea) context.
Saemidori is an early-maturing cultivar making up 16% of Kagoshima’s acreage against 6% nationally, and sellers prize it for vivid color and low bitterness. It shows up often in matcha from southern Japan.
Asahi is associated in the trade with top-grade tencha and gyokuro from Uji, and is grown in small volumes. It doesn’t appear separately in MAFF’s regional table (it falls into “other”), which is itself telling: the cultivars behind top-tier matcha are rare enough to be statistical rounding errors.
You’ll also meet Gokou, Uji Hikari, and Tsuyuhikari on premium tins — all minor by acreage, all associated with shaded teas.
What cultivar-named matcha costs
(This site earns affiliate commissions from some retailers; no brand paid for placement, and the price data below covers every product in each store rather than a selection.)
From our price database of 154 US listings, 38 name a cultivar. Here’s the price range for each:
| Cultivar | Products | Price per gram |
|---|---|---|
| Okumidori | 17 | $0.20–$1.80 |
| Samidori | 6 | $1.68–$4.40 |
| Tsuyuhikari | 5 | $1.00–$1.90 |
| Saemidori | 4 | $1.27–$5.50 |
| Narino | 2 | $2.50–$4.40 |
| Uji Hikari | 1 | $5.75 |
| Asahi | 1 | $2.50 |
| Yabukita | 1 | $1.45 |
| Seimei | 1 | $2.25 |
Regular prices, August 24, 2026. Counts are products naming that cultivar; multi-cultivar blends are attributed to the first cultivar listed.
Okumidori spans nearly the entire market — $0.20/g culinary powder to $1.80/g premium tins — which is a useful antidote to cultivar romanticism. Naming a cultivar tells you what was planted, not how well it was grown, shaded, or milled.
The more surprising finding is what doesn’t show up: a single-cultivar premium. Products labeled “single cultivar” (7 listings) run a median of $1.63/g, and cultivar-naming blends (7 listings) run $1.68/g — statistically identical, though the samples are small. The genuinely rare cultivars command high prices individually (Uji Hikari at $5.75/g, Samidori up to $4.40/g), but “single cultivar” as a phrase is not itself a price tier.
The more interesting question is who names cultivars at all. Across the twelve brands we track:
| Brand | Listings naming a cultivar |
|---|---|
| Nekohama | 2 of 2 (100%) |
| Rocky’s | 11 of 15 (73%) |
| Jade Leaf | 9 of 17 (53%) |
| Rishi | 6 of 14 (43%) |
| Matchaful | 2 of 6 (33%) |
| Kettl | 8 of 42 (19%) |
| Encha, Ippodo, Naoki, Ujido, Dona, Matchaeologist | 0 |
Disclosure isn’t a luxury-tier habit: Jade Leaf, the lowest-median-price brand in our dataset, names cultivars on more than half its listings. And its absence isn’t an indictment — Ippodo has communicated quality through named house blends since 1717 and doesn’t need a cultivar to do it. But if you’re buying from a brand you don’t know, a named cultivar is one of the few checkable specifics on the label, which is why it heads our checklist for reading a label, ahead of harvest and region.
Why cultivar names are suddenly everywhere
Because the matcha side of Japanese tea is booming while the rest of it shrinks — and the money follows.
MAFF’s data quantifies both halves. Japan’s overall tea acreage has been falling for two decades. But tencha production — the shade-grown leaf that becomes matcha — hit 6,278 tonnes in 2025, roughly 3.2 times its 2014 level. And tencha commands prices nothing else in the industry approaches: at the 2025 first flush, tencha averaged ¥10,030 per kilogram against ¥2,278 for sencha — about 4.4 times more for the same first harvest.
That price gap explains the cultivar boom on two levels. For farmers, it justifies replanting fields with tencha-suited cultivars, which is a years-long, expensive commitment — you don’t switch a tea field casually. For sellers, it creates a crowded premium shelf where everyone needs a way to say “this one is different,” and a cultivar name is the most concrete thing available. Both forces push in the same direction: more Okumidori and Samidori in the ground, more cultivar names on tins.
It also explains why search interest is climbing. In our August 2026 keyword data, US searches for “okumidori matcha” are up 85% year over year, “yabukita matcha” up 50%, “samidori matcha” up 22% — while broad terms like “matcha powder” fall. The audience is getting more specific, and almost nothing in English answers them.
How to read a cultivar name when you’re buying
Four practical rules.
Treat it as provenance, not a promise. A cultivar tells you what was planted. Shading duration, harvest timing, and milling determine what ends up in the bowl, and every published tasting we’ve read finds bigger gaps between well-made and poorly-made tins than between cultivars.
Blends aren’t lesser. Most excellent matcha is blended, and blending is a craft: houses combine cultivars and lots to hit a consistent profile year after year. A named blend from a serious house carries more information than a single-cultivar tin from a brand you’ve never heard of.
Rare cultivar plus premium price should come with a story. Uji Hikari at $5.75/g or Samidori at $4.40/g is plausible given how little of Japan grows them — but the listing should also name a region, a harvest, ideally a farm. Rarity alone isn’t a receipt.
For lattes, ignore this page. Under milk, the distinctions you paid extra for stop being audible. Our latte guide puts the sensible range at $0.40–0.90/g, and no cultivar changes that math.
FAQ
What is Okumidori matcha?
Matcha made from the Okumidori cultivar, a late-maturing variety whose name means “deep green.” It accounts for about 4% of Japan’s tea acreage but 13% of Kyoto’s, making it one of the cultivars most associated with matcha production. Sellers consistently describe it as sweet with low astringency.
Is Okumidori better than Yabukita?
They’re different tools. Yabukita was bred for sencha and dominates Japanese tea (64% of acreage); Okumidori is planted disproportionately in matcha-producing Kyoto. For matcha specifically, the cultivars concentrated in matcha country are there for good reason — but growing, shading, and milling matter more than the cultivar name on any given tin.
Is Okumidori matcha rare?
Relative to Yabukita, yes: 4% of national acreage versus 64%. In matcha specifically it’s common — the single most frequently named cultivar in our US price dataset (17 of 38 cultivar-labeled products). Genuinely rare would be Uji Hikari or Asahi, which don’t even appear separately in MAFF’s regional statistics.
What cultivar is Uji matcha?
Uji is a place (in Kyoto), not a cultivar, and Kyoto’s fields are a mix: 49% Yabukita, 13% Okumidori, 10% Samidori, with a quarter in other varieties including Asahi, Gokou, and Uji Hikari. A tin labeled “Uji matcha” tells you the region; a cultivar name tells you the plant.
Do I need to care about cultivars?
Only if you drink matcha straight and want to explore. For lattes, no. For everyday drinking, a named cultivar is a useful sign that the brand knows and will state what it bought — which is the same reason we recommend looking for a named harvest and region.
How this data was collected
Cultivation figures come from Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, “Current State of Tea” (茶をめぐる情勢), July 2026 edition. Three tables in it are used here: cultivar composition by producing region (ministry survey, fiscal 2025), the tencha production series (National Federation of Tea Producers’ Associations), and 2025 first-flush prices by tea type. Yen figures are quoted as published, without conversion.
Product prices and cultivar labels come from our own dataset — the same 154 US listings behind our price guide, collected August 24, 2026 from twelve brands’ official stores and downloadable here. Cultivar attribution follows what each seller states; where a product names several cultivars in a blend, we attribute it to the first one listed, so the per-cultivar counts should be read as “products that name this cultivar,” not as single-cultivar counts. Collection is scripted; the reading of the statistics, the writing, and the fact-checking are done by hand. Search-volume figures are from Google Keyword Planner (US, English), pulled August 24, 2026. We did not taste-test; flavor descriptions are attributed to growers and sellers. This site earns affiliate commissions from some linked retailers; no brand paid for placement.
Fuki Narita runs The Matcha Index, an independent price database of Japanese tea sold in the West, built by collecting every listing from each brand’s public store feed and republished with each update so anyone can check the math. Based in Japan; not affiliated with any tea brand.