01
What is Samidori?
Samidori is a tea plant variety selected from Uji native tea and bred in 1954 by Koyama Masajiro, according to Kyoto Prefecture's tea research station. Kyoto describes it as excellent for tencha (the leaf that becomes matcha), with bright colour and good flavour, and notes that the plant grows very upright, so it is easy to hand-pick. The station lists Asahi, Samidori and Ujihikari as the main tencha varieties grown in the prefecture.
02
What does Samidori matcha taste like?
We have no sourced, cultivar-level taste data, so we do not generalise. The one product we found whose maker names Samidori is TOBI-EN Hatsumukashi. TOBI-EN describes its taste as mellow and pleasant, with rich, deep umami. That is one maker describing one tea, and it says nothing about the whole cultivar. For what drinkers report, read the People report on each blend page.
03
Which matcha names Samidori as its cultivar?
TOBI-EN Hatsumukashi: the maker's page lists Samidori, spring 2026 first-flush leaves hand-picked from shaded Uji fields, stone-ground, for koicha or usucha, with leaves from Uji's Shirakawa area. This guide used to list Marukyu Aoarashi and Ippodo Ummon-no-Mukashi too. Neither maker's product page that we could read (Ippodo's, and archived May 2025 copies of Marukyu's) names a cultivar, so they are removed. A product named Samidori, such as the one from Yamamasa Koyamaen, is not a statement about the cultivar.
