Myokoen (妙香園).

Myokoen was founded in February 1916 in Atsuta, the southern ward of Nagoya around the great shrine, and its main shop still stands at 2-1-44 Sawakami, a few doors from the head office and the factory where the blends are made, open 9:00 to 18:00 with its own parking. The company presents itself as a child of the Owari tea habit, the matcha culture the seventh lord Tokugawa Muneharu spread through the castle town, and keeps four Chinese characters as a house motto, Meicha Junshin, good tea moistens the heart. A second factory in Nishio, the matcha town south of the city, handles part of the production.

Most people meet the house underground. The Sakae-chika shop, at the exit of Sakae station, and the Sunroad shop under Meieki each keep a hojicha roaster turning in the window and sell the leaf fresh from the drum, and next to the Sakae-chika counter the Myokoen Tea Store pours matcha and hojicha drinks to take away. Every directly run shop, including the newer one in the Atsuta nagAya arcade by the shrine, offers each visitor a bowl of matcha and a sweet. The hojicha is the signature: a strong-roast blend, a lighter one, an all-domestic hoji-sencha, and Nagoya Hojicha Ran, cut with gyokuro.

The rest of the shelf is a full Japanese tea range blended from leaf the buyers select in growing regions across the country: senchas in six grades from the everyday Shokisen and Ikenoo to Chikusen, Jun, Obaku and the top Sencha Myoko, a shaded Hon-kabuse, three gyokuros, kukicha, bancha, two genmaichas and a fine sencha dust, plus a Chinese oolong, jasmine and wakocha in teapot bags and domestic barley tea. The six Uji matchas go from Miya no Mori to Matcha Myoko, all sold in 20 g and 40 g. The online shop ships nationwide and waives the fee from ¥10,000 per address.