Kagoshima Leaf-Tea Prices Hit 50-Year High as Matcha Demand Pulls Land Out of Sencha
Kagoshima's first-flush auction closed with honcha leaf tea averaging ¥5,228 a kilogram (about US$35), more than double last year and the highest since 1975, as growers convert sencha fields to matcha's raw material.
Honcha, the everyday leaf tea brewed as sencha, closed Kagoshima's 2026 first-flush season at ¥5,228 a kilogram (about US$35), the highest price since 1975, the Minami Nippon Shimbun reported.
The average more than doubled last year's ¥2,564 (about US$17). The full ichibancha (first-flush) season at the Kagoshima prefectural tea market ran from early April through late May; total volume traded was 3,821 metric tons, up 12.5% from 2025. Tencha, the shaded leaf processed into matcha, averaged ¥13,910 a kilogram (about US$93), up 2.3 times year on year; organic tea averaged ¥8,047 (about US$54), up 69.4%.
The season had opened on a strong note. At the first trading session on April 6, the top lot sold for ¥30,000 a kilogram (about US$200), the highest since 1989, on an opening average of ¥6,573 (about US$44), according to the same paper's report on that session.
Yosuke Tashiro of the JA Kagoshima Economic Federation's tea division said demand had "far exceeded expectations." Ken Okamura, chairman of the Kagoshima Tea Merchants Cooperative, said it was a good thing that the prefecture's tea was gaining value, but that the sudden reversal of supply and demand had left the trade confused. The Kyushu Regional Agricultural Administration cautioned against relying too heavily on export demand to sustain the prices.
The price split points to the underlying cause. Growers have been converting sencha fields to tencha cultivation to capture matcha's higher prices, which has tightened the supply of leaf destined for brewing tea even as Kagoshima's overall harvest grew. Kagoshima has been Japan's largest raw-tea producer for two straight years.
Kagoshima and Shizuoka are Japan's two largest tea-producing prefectures by volume, and the same pull reaches beyond them, into Kyoto's Uji region and the other matcha origins. The pattern is the same everywhere: rising global demand for matcha is bidding up the price of land and labor across the whole leaf-tea sector it sits inside, not just the matcha grades themselves.
Sources: Minami Nippon Shimbun via 373news.com, 鹿児島県産一番茶が急騰 前年の2倍 抹茶ブームが追い風; Minami Nippon Shimbun via 373news.com, 2026年産新茶、最高値3万円 日本一早い鹿児島の初取引.