Saeakari

Saeakari is a NARO cultivar from the Makurazaki station in Kagoshima, registered under the Plant Variety Protection Act in 2012. It is Saemidori’s successor in the most literal sense — Saemidori is its pollen parent, and the name records the inheritance: さえ from the parent, あかり for the bright colour it kept. The advance over Saemidori is that it holds that brightness through the summer crop, which is where early cultivars usually lose it.

Lineage

• Z1 ♀ — a numbered breeding accession held at Kanaya, never released as a cultivar.
• Saemidori ♂ (さえみどり) — Cha Norin No. 40, itself Yabukita × Asatsuyu.

Z1 is also the seed parent of Fushun, twenty-one years earlier, which makes Fushun and Saeakari half-siblings across two generations of the same programme. Through Saemidori the line reaches both Yabukita and Asatsuyu, and through Asatsuyu the Uji landrace.

History

Bred at Makurazaki and registered in November 2012 as PVP No. 22070. No Cha Norin number was found for it, which is what recent NARO tea releases look like: Seimei, Kanaemaru and the others of that generation carry Plant Variety Protection Act registrations only, the two-track system having lapsed for tea by then. The registration remains live — propagating material may not leave Japan, and self-propagation requires a free licence.

Characteristics

Plucking runs three to four days ahead of Yabukita, putting it between Yutakamidori and Yabukita on the early side of the season. The bush is somewhat spreading (やや開張型) with vigour above Yabukita’s, and yield is higher than Yabukita across both the first and second flush.

Its disease package is the strongest in this part of the collection: anthracnose, ring spot and bacterial shoot blight are all rated somewhat strong or better, which is a genuine improvement on both Yabukita and Saemidori. Split-bark frost injury resistance is somewhat strong, red-scorch medium. Mochi disease and mulberry scale are the two weak points and want controlling where they occur.

The trait worth singling out is shade tolerance. NARO’s handbook records 被覆適性があり — it takes covering — and names kabusecha, gyokuro and tencha as suitable products. An early-budding cultivar that also shades well is a useful thing: most of the tencha and gyokuro cultivars in this collection are mid or late, and an early one moves the shaded harvest forward. The processing caution is specific and practical: in its first cropping year the leaf is thick and steam does not penetrate easily, and that eases as the bush matures and the leaf thins.