TeaHQ

Kyomidori

A Kyoto cultivar grown for tencha and gyokuro, valued for the vivid green it holds under shade and after grinding. Colour is a commercial property in matcha to a degree it is in almost no other tea — a dull green is discounted regardless of how it tastes — and Kyomidori is one of the cultivars planted specifically to hold it.

京みどりCamellia sinensis var. sinensisJapan

Where it sits in the botany

Kyomidori is recorded under Camellia sinensis var. sinensis, the variety group one level above cultivar. It is associated with Japan, which is where it was selected or is most widely planted rather than the only place it grows.

Also transliterated as: kyomidori, kyo midori.

Where it came from

A Kyoto selection propagated for shaded cultivation in the Uji district.

How firm this is: Inferred rather than taken from a primary breeding or registration record. Date and parentage were not verified against a primary source.

What the plant is like

Strong colour retention under shade and after milling, with a mild, sweet profile. Grown mainly in and around the Kyoto tea district.

Why a grower plants it

Yield, hardiness, when it buds, what it resists and whether a machine can cut it. This is the half of a cultivar’s identity that decides what is actually in the ground, and it is usually left out of writing aimed at drinkers.

Planted for a commercial property that is not a flavour: colour retention under shade and after milling. Matcha is discounted for a dull green almost regardless of how it tastes, and a powder oxidises and fades from the moment it leaves the mill, so a cultivar that holds its colour through covering, grinding and a few weeks on a shelf is worth planting on that ground alone.

What it does in the cup

Reported as mild and sweet with a vivid green that survives milling, and as less aromatically pronounced than the Uji cultivars grown for character.

How much of this is really the cultivar?

This record exists mostly to make a point about what the market pays for. A drinker judging matcha by colour is judging a property that is partly cultivar, partly shading, partly harvest date and partly how recently it was ground — and is not, on its own, judging quality. Bright green powder that tastes of very little is entirely achievable, and a cultivar selected for colour is one of the ways it is achieved.

Cultivar, growing site and processing all shape a cup, and the cultivar is very often the smallest of the three. It is also the one that fits on a label, so almost every commercial incentive runs toward overstating it. This section is on every cultivar page that has been reviewed for it, including the ones where the honest answer is “less than you would think”.

What it is usually made into

The categories this cultivar is typically processed into. It is a statement about common practice, not a limit — processing decides the category, and a cultivar can be taken down more than one route.

  • Green tea — Tea whose oxidation is halted early by heat, keeping the leaf green and the cup fresh, vegetal or marine in character.

Teas in the catalogue made from Kyomidori

Other cultivars in Camellia sinensis var. sinensis

Sources

  • TeaHQ editorial synthesis — TeaHQ

This page is TeaHQ’s own synthesis throughout. No breeding register or institutional record stands behind the account above, which is why the origin note carries its confidence in the open rather than reading as a citation.

How TeaHQ handles sources