Engineer’s
STARTING POINT
Born in 1948 in Hayato Town, Aira District, Kagoshima, Yoshiharu graduated from a national college of technology and joined Hitachi, Ltd. It was the height of Japan's rapid economic growth. Industry was expanding at an extraordinary pace, and he was right in the middle of it.
At the time, industrial ambition was reaching beyond land, toward the sea, and then toward space. Yoshiharu, too, was drawn to ocean development, envisioning a future of marine resource exploration.
But his first assignment was something else entirely: the launch of a new air-conditioning factory.
Not the ocean he had imagined. The interior of an enormous factory. There, for roughly four years, Yoshiharu managed and controlled entire production lines. Automated control systems. Control software written in assembly language. Cutting-edge technology with few precedents in Japan at the time, implemented as part of a dedicated project team.
It was not the place he had wanted to be. And yet, the skills and perspective he gained there would later form the foundation of everything he built in tea.
THE DECISION TO RETURN
Even while standing on the front lines as an engineer, a voice from Kirishima began to reach him.
"Come home."
One sentence from his family. The decision to leave the company took three years. While still working in the production engineering department, he wrestled with the choice, thinking, questioning, fulfilling his responsibilities to the end. It was not a job he could easily let go.
When Yoshiharu returned, it was to his wife Junko's hometown. He chose to build his life on this land.
It Means NOTHING WITHOUT YOU
About three years after the airport opened, tea cultivation had begun to take hold in the surrounding area.
Back in Kirishima, Yoshiharu threw himself into tea farming. But it was not something he could live on right away. Tea plants take years before they can be harvested. During that time, he and Junko continued raising cattle, keeping their livelihood afloat.
Eventually, as tea production stabilized, Yoshiharu devoted himself fully to tea.
Until then, the standard practice was to grow and harvest tea, then bring it to a nearby factory for processing. This is where the engineer's eye kicked in. Yoshiharu built his own tea processing factory, one that could handle everything from cultivation to manufacturing and finishing, all under one roof.
Right next to it stood Hisae's cowshed. Even then, Hisae was still tending the cattle while lending a hand with the tea.
Most of the finished tea went to wholesalers, tea merchants, and auction markets. But that alone could not carry their tea all the way to the people who would drink it. In time, the cowshed was transformed into a roasting facility, and a system took shape where the family could handle everything, from roasting to sales, on their own.
The tea fields kept expanding. Under Yoshiharu, they grew to roughly 18 hectares. The equivalent of four Tokyo Domes.
In those days, much of Kagoshima's tea was shipped to other regions and used as blending material. To add color, supplement flavor, or increase volume. It was still rare for Kagoshima tea to reach consumers as "Kagoshima tea."
The connection that changed everything for Yoshiharu was a wholesaler in Yame, Fukuoka.
Yame tea is nothing like Kirishima tea. The aroma hits hard. The umami runs deep. There is a force to it, the moment it touches your mouth, something rises up through your body. A different direction entirely from the gentle sweetness of Kirishima tea.
Under the guidance of this Yame wholesaler, Yoshiharu kept pushing to meet their demands. Better. Higher. It
was never easy. Machines do exactly what you tell them. Tea plants do not. The soil, the temperature, the rainfall. Everything changes year to year. The same field never produces the same tea twice.
And yet, those years of answering that call shaped the character of Imamura tea. Rooted in Kirishima, but diverging from what Kirishima tea typically is. A strength you can taste the moment it hits your palate. That comes from the years spent with the Yame wholesaler.
No matter how much skill or effort goes into making tea, none of it matters without people who love it and drink it.
Forty years. Fifty years. What Yoshiharu built was not just technique. It was relationships. Trust. Cooperation. Living within the community, walking alongside others. That stance itself became the foundation of his tea making.
Yoshiharu often says this:
"Everything looks like tea to me. I end up connecting everything back to tea."
Whether you are facing tea or facing people, the outcome is up to you. A life steeped in tea. It continues tomorrow.
Born August 23, 1948
YOSHIHARU
IMAMURA
今村 義治
Born in Hayato Town, Aira District, Kagoshima. After graduating from a national college of technology, he joined Hitachi, Ltd. as an engineer, working at the cutting edge of automated control systems. The hands that once operated massive production lines eventually became the hands that picked tea leaves. After returning to Kirishima, he took the Imamura name and began building a tea operation from the ground up: an integrated system spanning cultivation, processing, and management. He expanded the Tea Plantation to roughly 18 hectares. "Everything looks like tea." True to those words, he still stands in the fields today.
