Harumoegi

Harumoegi is a Miyazaki sencha cultivar registered in 2003 as 茶農林51号, and the thing to know about it is that it is a full sibling of Sakimidori. The same station crossed the same two parents — the Kanaya breeding line 茶本F1NN27 and the local landrace selection ME52 — in 1979 and again in 1981, selected two different seedlings out of the two crosses, and registered them six years apart. Sakimidori went first, in 1997; Harumoegi followed.

What Harumoegi was selected for is colour, and specifically colour that survives the calendar. New leaves at plucking are pale 萌黄 green; the second crop does not take on the reddish cast that most cultivars’ summer leaf does; and the finished tea holds a vivid fresh green. The name records all three.

Lineage

• F1NN27 ♀ (茶本F1NN27) — an unreleased breeding line from the National Tea Experiment Station at Kanaya, itself Yabukita × Shizuoka Zairai No. 16.
• ME52 ♂ — a Miyazaki landrace selection held by the station.

Because F1NN27 is Yabukita × Shizuoka Zairai No. 16, and Okumidori is the same cross made at Kanaya, Harumoegi is a close relative of Okumidori through its seed parent — and of Minamisayaka, which used F1NN27 on the pollen side. The pedigree diagram makes the shape obvious in a way none of the individual records do.

Forward, it is the seed parent of the Miyazaki line 宮崎40号, crossed with Yumekaori.

History

Crossed in 1981 at the Miyazaki Prefectural Agricultural Experiment Station’s tea research branch and trialled as 宮崎18号. MAFF registered it as 茶農林51号 in 2003, and a Plant Variety Protection Act registration, No. 13755, followed in February 2006. Unusually among the recent registrations in this collection, self-propagation needs no licence.

Characteristics

Plucking runs two to three days after Yabukita. The bush is upright (直立型) with vigour level with Yabukita’s or slightly below — the one trait where it does not improve on the reference — and NARO advises planting in double rows to build enough spread to compensate. Yield is level with Yabukita and varies by region; the cultivar is grown nationwide but rates best in warm districts.

Ring spot resistance is strong, which is its clearest agronomic advantage. Anthracnose is medium and wants control where the disease runs heavy, and mulberry scale occurs at Yabukita’s rate. Bacterial shoot blight, mochi disease and net blister blight all need managing, so the spray programme is not light.

In the cup the colour is the strong point, with a mild aroma and a rounded, mellow flavour. The processing caution follows from the leaf being on the thin side: it can break up in the primary roller, so air volume and drum speed want easing back.