Fujisan
3,776 m
"Our second mountain. Tea has grown in Fuji’s shadow for eight hundred years — we are going to distil it."
Fujisan needs no introduction — the snowbound cone above Shizuoka is the most recognised mountain on earth. Less known is what lies at its feet: Japan’s greatest tea country, row after row of sencha hedges running straight toward the volcano.
We are walking gardens on the Fujinomiya side now, where volcanic soil, morning fog off Suruga Bay, and cold air sliding down the mountain slow the leaf the same way Alishan’s cloud sea does.
The bottle will be built on spring sencha, lifted with sakura blossoms gathered beneath the mountain — green and umami at the spine, soft cherry blossom at the top. The first batch will be kickstarted by our founders; back the campaign and you are in before anyone else.
The gardens below the cone.
The leaf we have chosen is sencha — Shizuoka’s spring first flush, grown in volcanic soil on the Fujinomiya plateau, where fog off Suruga Bay and cold air sliding down the cone slow the bushes and thicken the leaf.
Steamed within hours of the pluck so it never oxidises, it keeps its green: a bright, grassy cup with a deep marine umami and a clean sweetness that lingers on the finish. That green, savoury spine is what the gin is built around — the sakura blossom only lifts it.
