TeaHQ

Okuhikari

A late-budding Shizuoka cultivar with good cold tolerance, planted at the other end of the season from the early Kyushu material. The oku- prefix marks a late cultivar, and lateness is a deliberate agronomic choice: it moves the picking window past the frost risk and out of the peak-labour crush that early cultivars create.

おくひかりCamellia sinensis var. sinensisJapan

Where it sits in the botany

Okuhikari 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: okuhikari, oku hikari.

Where it came from

A late-season Shizuoka selection released in the later twentieth century.

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

What the plant is like

Late bud break, good cold hardiness, and a clean, brisk cup with more astringent structure than the early cultivars.

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 Okuhikari

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

Written comparisons

Where TeaHQ has set this cultivar against something it is routinely confused with, and argued the differences out in full.

  • Harumidori vs Okuhikari — Early and late, planted on the same farm for the same reason. A tea garden cannot pick everything at once, so cultivars are chosen partly for when they bud, and this pair shows what that agronomic decision does to the cup at each end.