Benifuuki

Benifuuki was registered in 1993 — breaking a 24-year gap in Japanese black-tea cultivar registration — by what was then the National Institute of Vegetable and Tea Science, developed at the Makurazaki field station in Kagoshima. Its pedigree is a 1965 cross between Benihomare (an assamica-derived line from Tada's Indian seeds) and a sinensis-type line with Darjeeling genetics. Benifuuki is the most assamica-influenced of the common wakoucha cultivars, which is why Benifuuki Wakoucha tends to have more body, a darker cup, and a "honey-with-backbone" character distinct from the sencha-converted style.