Asatsuyu vs Saemidori
A parent and its more successful child. Asatsuyu is nicknamed ‘natural gyokuro’ for tasting sweet without shading, and is difficult enough to grow that it survives mainly through its descendants — Saemidori among them.
cultivar
What is being compared
Why these get confused
‘Natural gyokuro’ reads as a category claim on a shop listing. Gyokuro is a shading regime; Asatsuyu is a plant that happens to taste sweet without one.
Point by point
| Aspect | Asatsuyu | Saemidori |
|---|---|---|
| Relationship | A parent of Saemidori. | A cross of Yabukita and Asatsuyu. |
| Astringency | Unusually low, even unshaded. | Low, and noticeably lower than Yabukita. |
| Agronomic behaviour | Difficult to grow and susceptible to disease. | Well-behaved enough to be planted at premium scale in Kagoshima. |
| Availability | Rare as a single-cultivar tea. | Widely available. |
| Origin | An old Uji-derived cultivar. | Modern, and now the leading premium sencha cultivar in Kagoshima. |
| The nickname problem | ‘Natural gyokuro’ describes flavour, not category. Gyokuro is defined by shading, which this plant does not require to taste sweet. | No comparable nickname, and no comparable confusion. |
The short answer
Breeding programmes usually trade a little character for a great deal of reliability, and this pair is the clean example: Saemidori keeps most of what made Asatsuyu desirable and can actually be farmed.
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