Of the more than 100 registered tea cultivars in Japan, the vast majority were developed for green tea. The country's tea culture is overwhelmingly green — steamed, unoxidized, shaped around the flavors that emerge when you protect the leaf from air. Izumi is an exception. Selected from a Benihomare seedling, it was registered in 1960 for pan-fired tamaryokucha and is today also known for distinctive wakocha production. And then history moved on, leaving the cultivar behind, and for a generation it nearly disappeared.
That near-disappearance, and the small number of producers who revived it, is part of what makes the Izumi tea cultivar worth knowing about. The other part is the cup itself.
What is the Izumi tea cultivar?
Izumi is one of Japan's rarest tea cultivars, registered in 1960 for pan-fired tamaryokucha — a style of green tea. It comes from a Benihomare seedling, and today producers also use it for distinctive wakoucha, Japanese-style black tea. Its mother cultivar is Benihomare, itself a cultivar with black tea heritage, which gives Izumi its unusual orientation toward oxidized processing in a country where almost every other cultivar was designed for the opposite.
The name means "spring" or "fountain" — a reference to the clarity and brightness of the tea's liquor. It is registered as a cultivar, though the exact registration date and parentage remain less thoroughly documented in public records than more prominent cultivars, partly because its early history was disrupted by the collapse in Japanese black tea export markets in the mid-20th century.
Izumi is sometimes called "the mythical cultivar" in Japanese tea circles — maboroshi no hinshuu — because its near-extinction status has become part of its identity. For context on how Japan's black tea history developed and declined, our article on types of black tea provides useful background.
Why Izumi Is a Black Tea Cultivar
In the 1950s and 1960s, Japan was an active exporter of black tea. The government promoted black tea cultivation to generate foreign currency, and cultivars suited to oxidized processing were actively developed and registered. Izumi emerged from that era — bred for the chemical profile that suits oxidized processing: aromatic compounds that develop well under oxidation, and a flavor structure that holds up to the full fermentation process.
When Japanese black tea exports collapsed — replaced by cheaper production from South Asia and East Africa — demand for these specialized cultivars evaporated. Most growers shifted to green tea cultivars, and Izumi nearly vanished with its era. A handful of producers in Shizuoka, committed to the idea of a distinctly Japanese take on black tea, kept growing it. For more on the oxidation process that Izumi was bred for, our article on oxidized tea manufacturing explains the stages.
The cultivar's black tea heritage connects it botanically to the Assam-type genetics that underpin most of the world's commercial black tea production, though Izumi's character in the cup is distinctly Japanese rather than Assam-like. For a comparison with another cultivar that bridges green and black tea heritage, see our article on Benifuuki.
Flavor profile of the Izumi tea cultivar
Delicate, floral, and light-bodied — these are the descriptors that recur in accounts of Izumi black tea. The aroma is often described as tropical: mango and orange, a brightness that opens quickly in the cup. Beneath the fruit notes there is sometimes a clean, almost minty freshness that distinguishes it from the heavier, malty depth of Assam-style teas.
The astringency is low. This is the most surprising characteristic for people approaching Izumi from experience with commercial black teas. Where Darjeeling or Assam carry a brisk grip that is part of their appeal, Izumi is light and easy — more like a high-grade Japanese green tea in its gentleness on the palate, despite being fully oxidized. The color of the liquor is typically amber, clear, bright — consistent with that name, "fountain."
Flavor varies by producer and growing season. Spring-picked Izumi tends toward more delicate floral notes; summer-picked shows more of the tropical fruit character; autumn can bring a slightly earthier, more complex quality. The cultivar is expressive enough that growing conditions and timing make a real difference in what appears in the cup.
Where the Izumi tea cultivar grows
Southern Shizuoka Prefecture — where winters are mild enough to support the cultivar's modest cold tolerance — is the main growing region for Izumi today. A small number of producers in Kyushu also grow it. The total cultivation area is extremely limited: this is not a cultivar that appears at scale anywhere. Individual farms, individual producers — the supply is limited to a handful of growers.
That scarcity makes Izumi tea genuinely difficult to find. Single-cultivar Izumi black tea is a specialty product even within the Japanese specialty tea market. When it appears at tea events or from importers who work directly with small Shizuoka producers, it tends to sell quickly. For more on Shizuoka's tea landscape, our article on Shizuoka's tea-growing region gives the full geography.
How to brew Izumi black tea
Use standard black tea parameters as a starting point: 90-95°C water, a 2-3 minute steep, and 3-4g per 200mL. But treat the short end of those ranges as the target rather than the long end. Izumi's delicate, floral character is easily overwhelmed by overextraction — a two-minute steep at 90°C captures the aromatic complexity without pushing the mild tannins into harshness.
Drink without milk to preserve the fruit and floral notes. Milk flattens exactly the qualities that make Izumi interesting. No sugar either, for the same reason. The cup is light enough that additional flavoring only obscures the cultivar character you are paying for. For context on how to approach Japanese black teas generally, our article on oxidized teas covers the category in more detail.
FAQ
- Is Izumi tea green tea or black tea?
- It depends on processing. Izumi is a tea cultivar — the plant variety — and the same cultivar can be processed as green tea or black tea depending on what the grower does after harvest. The cultivar was originally registered for pan-fired tamaryokucha, and most contemporary Izumi production is black tea. But the cultivar itself is neither green nor black until processed. When you see "Izumi" on a label, look for the processing style to understand what is in the bag.
- Where can I buy Izumi tea?
- Izumi tea is rare enough that it rarely appears in mainstream tea retail. Your best options are specialty Japanese tea importers who work directly with small Shizuoka producers, or Japanese tea festivals and events where rare cultivar teas are often showcased. Online, Japanese specialty tea retailers sometimes carry it seasonally. Expect to pay a significant premium — the combination of limited cultivation area, small production volumes, and specialty market demand keeps pricing high.
- How is Izumi different from Benifuuki?
- Both cultivars have black tea heritage in their lineage, but they developed in different directions. Benifuuki was bred for methylated catechin content and is typically processed as green tea, where those catechins are preserved. Izumi was bred for oxidized processing and is best known as a black tea cultivar. In terms of flavor, Benifuuki Sencha is notably astringent (the catechins are the point), while Izumi black tea is notably delicate and low in astringency — almost the opposite character despite the shared ancestry.
The Izumi tea cultivar represents a path that Japanese tea nearly abandoned and then quietly preserved. Its near-disappearance was not a failure of the cultivar — the cup is too good for that explanation. It was a casualty of agricultural economics and shifting export markets. The producers who kept growing it understood something about what it could offer, and that preservation has kept a genuinely unusual tea in the world.
If you want to explore Japanese teas beyond the mainstream, including cultivar-specific and specialty selections when available, you can browse our tea collection.