TeaHQ

Meiryoku

A Kyushu cultivar selected for deep colour and body in the cup, and used mainly where a thick, dark, deep-steamed sencha is the target. It is a workhorse rather than a showpiece: its role is to give a blend weight and green depth that a lighter cultivar cannot supply on its own.

めいりょくCamellia sinensis var. sinensisJapan

Where it sits in the botany

Meiryoku 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: meiryoku, mei ryoku.

Where it came from

A Kyushu selection propagated for deep-steamed sencha production in the later twentieth century.

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

What the plant is like

Thick leaf and strong colour extraction, suited to fukamushi. Less aromatic than the fragrance-bred cultivars and used accordingly.

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.

A thick-leaved Kyushu selection whose colour extraction and body suit deep steaming, and that is the whole of its commercial case: fukamushi breaks the leaf down hard, which flatters a plant with substance and destroys a plant with aroma. Its role is to give a blend weight that a lighter cultivar cannot supply.

What it does in the cup

Reported as thick and strongly coloured in the cup, and as less aromatic than the fragrance-bred cultivars — a workhorse rather than a showpiece, and used accordingly.

How much of this is really the cultivar?

A blending cultivar is a cultivar chosen for what it contributes to something else, and this is one. It is nearly never sold under its own name, so a drinker's exposure to it is real and unlabelled — which is the ordinary condition of most tea plants and the reason a cultivar list on a package tells a reader far less than it appears to.

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 Meiryoku

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