Kiyoka

Kiyoka is a 2020 cultivar bred by NARO at its Makurazaki tea research station in Kagoshima, from a cross made in 1998 between an internal breeding line called FYZ-41 and the established cultivar Saemidori. It registers as a Plant Variety Protection Act variety rather than a MAFF Cha Norin number, which places it firmly in the modern, institutionally-bred cohort rather than the landrace-selection lineage of a cultivar like Yabukita. Against Yabukita it is a distinctly early cultivar — about eight days earlier to first-flush picking — bred for a warm-region niche, and its defining trait is a sweet floral aroma layered over Saemidori’s characteristic umami. It is new enough that its documentation is almost entirely official: a detailed Plant Variety Protection Act record and a NARO extension-handbook profile exist, but no independent vendor or reviewer coverage has surfaced yet.

Lineage

• FYZ-41 ♀ — an unregistered NARO breeding-line designation, not a named cultivar. NARO’s own pedigree chart traces it to Yabukita × Shizu-Inzatsu 131, an unregistered Assamica-hybrid breeding line selected in 1944 at the Shizuoka tea experiment station from a seedling of “Manipuri No. 15,” an Assam-type tea tree grown from seed brought from India in the 1920s. Shizu-Inzatsu 131 never carried a name of its own — the Cha Norin registration system did not exist until 1953 — but it is the same pollen parent behind Sofu and Fujikaori, so FYZ-41 is best understood as a sibling breeding line to those two rather than as a distinct landrace or an unknown outcross.
• Saemidori ♂ (さえみどり) — a NARO cultivar in its own right (Yabukita × Asatsuyu, registered 1991), contributing rich umami and strong processing quality; it plays the same role as a parent of Kirari 31.

Kiyoka is a controlled cross on both sides, not a landrace selection: both parents are documented individuals, and FYZ-41’s own parentage is documented in turn back to a named Assam introduction. No cultivars bred from Kiyoka are recorded — it is itself too recent to have produced any registered descendants.

History

The cross was made in 1998 at NARO’s Makurazaki tea research station in Kagoshima (an institution whose predecessor names include the National Institute of Vegetable and Tea Science; NARO is the umbrella organisation today). Twelve breeders are credited on the Plant Variety Protection Act registration: Yoshida Katsuyuki, Ogino Akiko, Nesumi Atsushi, Saba Tetsuji, Tanaka Jun’ichi, Taniguchi Fumiya, Yamashita Shuya, Yorozuya Hiroshi, Matsunaga Akiko, Takeda Yoshiyuki, Okamoto Tsuyoshi and Yoshitomi Hitoshi — a list that spans the roughly two decades between the cross and registration, in the same way Kirari 31’s release, from a comparable programme, is credited to six researchers over nineteen years.

The application (No. 33551) was filed on 14 December 2018 and published on 14 March 2019; the registration itself (No. 28148) was granted on 19 November 2020, held by NARO as an institution rather than by any individual breeder. Removal of propagating material overseas is prohibited, and growers who want to self-propagate it need a licence from NARO, issued free of charge.

The name is explained directly in NARO’s own cultivar-handbook entry: it was chosen in the hope that a flower-like aroma, combined with Saemidori’s fine flavour, would produce a fragrant tea carrying a sense of clarity or purity — 清らか (kiyoraka) — which the name is read from.

As of this record, Kiyoka has not reached the point of independent commercial documentation. Shinkoju.com, otherwise the broadest single-cultivar retail reference available for Japanese tea, lists “きよか” among its cultivar names but the link goes to the page for Kyomidori (きょうみどり) instead — the entry appears not to have been written yet, rather than genuinely marked as in-progress (編集中). Everything in this record beyond the registration itself comes from NARO’s own extension handbook, which functions as the cultivar’s only detailed public profile so far.

Characteristics

Kiyoka’s first flush is picked about eight days ahead of Yabukita at the breeding site, and its Plant Variety Protection Act filing separately rates its budding stage as “considerably early” relative to Yabukita. Growth habit is somewhat spreading, with somewhat strong vigour. It is described as a “shoot-weight” type — new shoots are large but form in smaller numbers per bush — which is the opposite growth pattern from a “shoot-number” type, and NARO’s cultivation notes recommend active pruning specifically to raise bud counts as a result. No yield figure is given in NARO’s own profile, unlike several of the other recently registered cultivars alongside it in the same handbook (Haruto 34 and Sofu both carry an explicit yield-versus-Yabukita comparison); this record leaves yield unstated rather than estimating it.

Disease and pest resistance is mixed and mostly on the weak side: anthracnose resistance is somewhat weak, resistance to bacterial shoot blight (赤焼病) is weak, and resistance to the white peach scale insect (クワシロカイガラムシ) is weak, so NARO’s notes call pest control necessary. Ring spot resistance reads as medium on the accompanying chart, though it isn’t mentioned in the prose summary. Resistance to mochi disease is comparatively better, rated somewhat strong.

In the cup, Kiyoka’s registration and its NARO handbook profile agree closely: a sweet floral aroma paired with umami in the taste, with pale-green leaf colour and somewhat strong “fermentability” (発酵性) named as the specific traits that distinguish it from both Yabukita and Saemidori in its own registration filing. That fermentability rating — how readily the leaf oxidises when processed — is the practical link to NARO’s processing advice: deep steaming (fukamushi) is explicitly discouraged because it dulls the aroma, while a light withering followed by semi-fermented, oolong-style processing is recommended and is said to preserve strong floral aroma and umami even in the normally weaker summer flush. A short period of direct shading (five to seven days at 70% shade) is tolerated without weakening the aroma, though NARO does not recommend shading as standard practice for it. Caffeine content is noted as high. Because its early, exposed budding sits inside the frost-risk window, NARO’s siting advice is aimed not at the warm districts it is recommended for but at the cooler 温暖地: growers there are told to weigh frost-protection infrastructure and orchard site conditions carefully before planting it.