Ikedoki Tea

Nagasaki Ikedoki Tea Project supports and promotes Sonogi cha, the delicious yet relatively unknown teas grown locally in the Higashisonogi region.

Ikedoki means 'tea break' in the Nagasaki dialect. Please enjoy a peaceful tea break with Sonogi Cha.

30/08/2026

Earlier this month we visit kamairicha producer Uenohara together with our guests from from Vienna, Austria 💚🌱
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We drove to Saza, about a 1,5 hour drive from Higashisonogi, and spent some time drinking Uenohara’s gently soft but flavourful kamairicha, toured his factory with machines from the 1960s (or older!), and walked around his scenic tea fields (which always smell amazing in summer with all the natural-growing herbs and weeds in-between the fields).
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Thank you Corina for coming out all the way to Nagasaki to visit our corner of Japan and to meet some of the farmers we work with. It was such a lovely day.
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A huge thank you to Uenohara for always welcoming us and any guests we bring so warmly.
And another thank you to our wonderful intern Sara who created this little video to summarise our visit 🌱🍵

11/08/2026

With the summer season there is a growing abundance of kakigōri: Japan’s shaved ice dessert flavoured with syrup.
There’s usually many flavours to choose from, and being in a tea town, there’s obviously going to be Sonogi tea flavour options! 🍵🍧
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This week there is a pop-up cafe inside the traditional Meiji era house (~100 year old, thatched roof). We sometimes use the traditional house for group events or tours, but today for once we were the customers who could just sit back and relax with a summer breeze passing through and making the fūrin (wind chime) chime enthusiastically.
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Thank you for the delicious Sonogi tea syrup kakigōri!

07/08/2026

The weather is turning a little dramatic with the wind increasing due to an incoming typhoon.
The wind is whistling around our office, the rice fields look like small green oceans with gorgeous waves and the tops of the tea trees are being tossed around.

05/08/2026

We’re in the ‘sanbancha’ period - traditionally Japan’s third harvest season around mid-July to August.
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Due to continued decline in domestic consumption of tea, the low prices for this season’s tea and the extreme heat of modern Japanese summers, many tea farmers across Japan have stopped harvesting during sanbancha season.
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We’ve heard recently that in Sonogi a handful of farmers have started some sanbancha harvest again due to the demand for powdered tea, making the prices worthwhile enough to battle the heat.
We heard yesterday from one of the farmers we work with that his father unfortunately got heat stroke this week from making wakōcha (Japanese black tea) and the temperature in the factory reaching over 45°C. The father used to rent a communal, more spacious tea factory for this harvest but it’s being currently transformed into a matcha factory. He had to return to using their own smaller, more compact tea factory which doesn’t have great ventilation.
The father is alright now but is still being treated in the hospital.
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Life as a farmer can be tough and has its dangers, so let’s not forget the immense physical effort tea producers put into their craft.

03/08/2026

With the summer heat, iced tea drinks are popular.
Even in the small town of Higashisonogi, we have a number of lovely cafe’s all with creative menus – offering different Sonogi-based tea drinks.
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For our Sunday lunch we treated ourselves to lunch at 社食ごはんウラノ (which serves Tozaka’s Winter Hōjicha with the meal set). As a special treat we ordered their seasonal coldbrew tamaryokucha with vanilla ice cream 💚

30/07/2026

Tamaryoku funmatcha & matcha tasting this week with tea producer Ikeda & tea farmer Oba.
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Farmer Oba informed us a while ago that he was making a 3-week shaded tamaryokucha to test its character as a matcha alternative.
He visited us to compare his Saemidori tamaryokucha powder (we call it ‘funmatcha’ to distinguish it from traditionally tencha-processed matcha) with some other tamaryoku funmatcha from other producers in Sonogi, as well as comparing it to Sonogi’s Forthees matcha (produced in traditional style red-brick oven tencha factory).
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We continue to be delighted and a big fan of the tamaryoku funmatcha and Oba’s Saemidori was no exception.
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We think it’s a success and would like to encourage Oba to produce more, in the hopes of sharing it with you in the future!

29/07/2026

We drink a lot of cold brew in summer, with at least one but sometimes up to 3 or even 4 cold brews in the fridge (which occasionally leads to a game of fridge Tetris to try fit bottles of different sizes all together).
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Here is a video of how we prepare our cold brew tamaryokucha – including the Ikedoki Team tradition of taking the cold brew out to watch the sunset over Omura Bay at the end of the day 🌅🥂💚
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Thank you to Sara, our current intern extraordinaire for creating the video 🤗

28/07/2026

Tea fields sunsets are always pretty, but especially when combined with the stunning hills & Omura Bay.
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We feel completely spoiled to have access to frequent paradise-like sunsets 🌅🌱
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If you visit us in Higashisonogi, consider staying somewhere local near Omura Bay and enjoy the gorgeous sunset view.

27/07/2026

We’ve mentioned it before, but we’re really BIG fans of our strawberry syrup, sparkling water tamaryoku funmatcha drink 🌱🍓🥂
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Especially great as an afternoon pick-me-up in the hot summer heat, the tamaryokucha taste blends so well with the home-made strawberry syrup. (It’s also excellent with lemon syrup which makes it even more refreshing - but we’re also a bit partial to the stunning pink & green contrasting colours) 💚🩷
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Thank you to our wonderful intern Sara who created this lovely video!
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As ikedoki is slowly growing, we’re increasing internship opportunities, so if you’re interested to help Ikedoki grow and learn all about tea whilst living in a countryside tea town: please check our website or reach out to us!

24/07/2026

If you are interested in Japanese green tea, chances are you have already come across the iconic Japanese teapot known as the kyūsu (急須). Its side handle and compact shape make it instantly recognisable, but this teapot is much more than a beautiful object. It has been carefully designed to brew Japanese tea in the best possible way, helping each leaf release its full flavour and aroma.
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Our wonderful intern Sara has written an in depth blog about the kyūsu - this is the first paragraph.
Please head to our blog (link through the link tree on our profile) to read more.
Sara is our writer extraordinaire and is working on many blogs during her time with us: please keep your eye on our blog as we try to update it with a new article every week.
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The kyūsu featured in the picture is from 平戸松山　| 伝統工芸品(磁器) - Marjolein’s favourite porcelain producer in Mikawachi (Nagasaki Prefecture). Not many of the porcelain producers seem to be making traditional style side-handle kyūsu and it’s difficult to find newly produced porcelain kyūsu in the greater Arita region.

住所

102 Sonogishukugo
Higashisonogi-gun, Nagasaki
859-3807

ウェブサイト

https://ikedokitea.com/

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