Where matcha comes from: Uji, Nishio, Kagoshima, Yame and Shizuoka

Matcha is a Japanese tea, and its leaf comes from a few regions that each have their own character. The table below is the short version. Uji has the history, the old houses and the most hand-picked reed-shaded gardens. Kagoshima, at the southern end of Kyushu, now grows the most. Kagoshima produced about 2,150 tonnes of tencha in 2024, roughly 40% of Japan's total, and has been the largest producer since 2020, according to the Global Japanese Tea Association's May 2026 report.

Japan's five main matcha regions. Kagoshima grows the most tencha; Uji carries the oldest names.

Region	Prefecture	Known for	On American shelves
Uji (with Wazuka, Ujitawara, Gokasho)	Kyoto	Matcha's historic home, honzu reed shade, hand-picking, the old blending houses	Nio Washimine, Kettl Gokasho, Breakaway Jizo
Nishio	Aichi	Generations of canopy-shaded tencha, a town that specialises in matcha	Part of Breakaway's blends
Kagoshima (Chiran, Kirishima, Shibushi)	Kagoshima	The largest grower, flat fields, early spring, many organic farms	Breakaway Hyperpremium Organic, Nio Zen Sakamoto
Yame (Hoshinomura)	Fukuoka	Small hill gardens, famous for gyokuro and rich matcha	Kettl Hibiki
Shizuoka (Tenryu, Ryogochi, Haruno)	Shizuoka	Japan's sencha heartland, now turning fields to tencha	Matchaful Kiwami, Kettl Ryogochi Okuyutaka

Uji

Uji, just south of Kyoto, is where shaded tea and the Japanese way of drinking it grew up together. The great houses are still there. Marukyu Koyamaen says on its company page that its founder, Kyujiro Koyama, began growing and making tea in Ogura, Uji around 1704, and that it has won first prize at the national tea competition twenty-two times. Ippodo traces its origins to a Kyoto shop opened in 1717. In practice much of what is sold as Uji is grown in the hill towns around it, Wazuka, Ujitawara and Gokasho among them. These are steep, cool gardens where hand-picking under reed and straw shade still happens.

Nishio

Nishio, in Aichi Prefecture between Nagoya and the sea, is the other old matcha town. The city's own guide to Nishio matcha traces its tea to Jissoji temple in 1271 and to a revival in the Meiji era, when seeds were brought from Uji. Nishio's gardens are mostly shaded under canopies. Breakaway Matcha names Nishio as one of the three regions behind its blends.

Kagoshima

Kagoshima's rise is the biggest change in matcha in a generation. Its fields are broad and flat, the spring comes early, and its farms are larger and more mechanised than those in Kyoto. It also grows a different mix of plants. Yabukita covers about three quarters of Japan's tea fields overall, by 2014 agriculture ministry figures summarised by Yunomi, but Kagoshima grows far more Saemidori and Yutakamidori than the national average. Much of Japan's organic tea is grown there too. The same GJTEA report put Kagoshima's average tencha price in May 2026 at about 19,000 yen a kilo.

Yame

Yame, in Fukuoka, is best known for gyokuro, the shaded leaf tea, and its small hill gardens produce rich, deep matcha as well. Kettl's koicha grade Hibiki comes from Shinya Yamaguchi in Hoshinomura, a mountain village in the Yame area.

Shizuoka

Shizuoka grows more tea of all kinds than almost anywhere in Japan, most of it sencha. As demand for matcha has climbed, more of its farmers are shading fields for tencha. Matchaful's Kiwami comes from Hattori Tea Farm in Shizuoka, and Kettl's Ryogochi Okuyutaka from Jiro Katahira in the mountains of Ryogochi.

A region tells you something, but a farm tells you more. The tins worth seeking out name the town, the cultivar and, best of all, the person who grew it.

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