Shizuoka tea sells sky‑high

Shizuoka’s first tea auction of the 2026 season opened with a top bid of 1.18 million yen per kilogram for new green tea leaves. (mainichi.jp) The sale took place Monday, April 20, at the Shizuoka Japanese Tea Market in Shizuoka City, and the highest-priced lot was grown in the city of Shizuoka. Reports put the price at about $7,400 a kilogram. (japantoday.com) The tea sold was machine-processed new tea, the first stage of green-tea processing in Japan after leaves are steamed, rolled and dried to lock in color and aroma. Japan’s tea export promotion body describes that rough tea stage as “aracha,” before later sorting and finishing. (japantoday.com) (nihon-cha.or.jp) Early auctions in Japan’s spring tea season often produce headline prices because buyers compete for tiny volumes of the freshest leaves, and Shizuoka’s opening sale is treated as a benchmark for the new crop. The 2026 result followed an already elevated 880,000 yen top price at the market’s first auction in 2025. (mainichi.jp) (gjtea.org) The timing is sensitive for Shizuoka because the prefecture’s tea industry has been losing ground in volume terms even as top lots still command premium bids. A February 2025 industry report said Kagoshima had overtaken Shizuoka in total tea output in 2024, while Shizuoka still led in spring-harvest volume. (gjtea.org) That shift ended a long run at the top. Asahi Shimbun reported in 2025 that Shizuoka had ranked first since record-keeping began in 1959 before Kagoshima moved ahead in “aracha,” or unrefined green tea. (asahi.com) Shizuoka still carries weight in premium tea culture as well as bulk production. The prefecture’s official food site says its Asahina area is one of Japan’s three major gyokuro-growing regions, a high-grade shaded tea known for sweetness and aroma. (fujinokuni.shokunomiyako-shizuoka.pref.shizuoka.jp) Higher auction prices are also landing in a market where tea costs have already been rising. Asahi reported in February 2026 that a global matcha boom was pushing tea leaf prices higher and spilling into retail price increases for bottled and packaged tea in Japan. (asahi.com) For now, the signal from Shizuoka’s opening sale is simple: even with output pressures and stronger competition from Kagoshima, buyers are still willing to pay extraordinary prices for the first standout leaves of the year. (mainichi.jp) (gjtea.org)