Hekikoen is a tea blender locating in Anjo city in Aichi prefecture. The blender has a retail shop near the Shin Anjo station on Meitetsu Nishio Line.
I’d like to share the features of interesting teas which I met in Hekikoen.

A service cuppa of deep steamed green tea in “Yasuragi no Shiro”, the retail shop of Hekikoen. The name of retail shop “Yasuragi no Shiro” means the castle for relaxation, which is derived from the meanings of Kanji characters of the city name “Anjo”.

1. Aromatic Gyokuro green tea “Tenkei Gyokuro”
Gyokuro is a kind of green teas. Gyokuro is made from tea shoots grown under the shade. Under the shade, chlorophyll content in tea leaves increases and synthesis of catechins from amino acids and other compounds gets slower, resulting in deeper green color of leaves and richness of umami due to amino acids.

I like the mellow aroma, when I open the package and brew the tea.

2. Flavored tea “Kintoki Ginger Gyokuro”
There are some kinds of flavored green tea named as “SHIN’s Flavored Tea”.
The flavored green teas are the fruits of a great collaboration among the tea blender, a cooking instructor and a ginger farmer. The cooking instructor, Terada Shinjiro, and Hekikoen have repeated trials and errors of blending various stuffs with the green tea, resulting in the best selection of special ginger perfect to the flavored green tea.
Their great efforts and elaboration let them to find the special ginger farm “Shougaya Kimura” in Aichi prefecture. The farm cultivates only “Kintoki Ginger”, driven by their great passion and motivation to supply the finest ginger to customers.

The flavored green tea of Kintoki ginger is awesome!
The sweet aroma of ginger makes me relaxed.

The taste is also good! The color of infusion is bright deep green, which indicates its full-bodied texture. I felt my body got warm by drinking the tea. It would be because of Shogaol. This flavored tea is perfect to the coming winter. I’d like to drink it at a cold morning.

Hekikoen sources crude teas some tea estates in Japan, such as Miyazaki, Kagoshima, Mie, Aichi and of course Shizuoka. The blender brings crude tea mainly from Miyazaki tea market. The tea suppliers in Shizuoka produce fine crude teas in Kanaya and Mori tea estate, locating on the north part of Makinohara upland and the mountainside of the north Enshu region, respectively.

< Shop information >

• Address : 1-3-3, Higashisakaemachi, Anjo city, Aichi prefecture.
• Access : 3 minutes from the north gate of Shin Anjo station on Meitetsu Line.
• URL : http://yasuraginoshiro.shop-pro.jp/ (written in only Japanese)

The outlook of Hekikoen.

Aromatic Gyokuro in Hekikoen.

A pair of Kyusu tea pot and small package of loose leaf teas as a gift.

Small packages of each tea are available.