Tea Gin (700 ml)

Ki No Bi Tea is a dedicated expression from The Kyoto Distillery — Japan's first dedicated gin distillery, founded in 2016 in the Fushimi district — built specifically around Japanese tea as the dominant botanical driver. Fushimi is historically prized for its exceptionally soft, mineral-low subterranean water, the same source that made the district a sake-brewing capital for centuries; that water carries the botanical distillate with unusual clarity and softness.

The distillery organises its botanicals into six categories — base, citrus, tea, floral, spice, and earthen — and in this expression, the tea pillar is amplified: sencha and gyokuro from Uji, Kyoto's premier tea-growing region, are macerated and distilled separately before blending, a modular approach that allows precise control of each aromatic register. The spirit is bottled at 45.7% ABV without chill-filtration, preserving the full texture of the tea oils.

What separates Ki No Bi Tea from the standard Ki No Bi is the deliberate shift toward savory, vegetal depth — gyokuro's shade-grown amino-acid richness introduces a pronounced umami register that no juniper-forward Western gin attempts. The result is a gin that reads more like a tea ceremony than a cocktail ingredient.