A sencha cultivar selected in 1927 on Tanegashima Island, Kagoshima Prefecture, from tea trees grown from seeds of zairai tea trees brought from Shizuoka by Kurita Shigesaburô. Registered in 1965, Kuritawase was for a time a cultivar recommended by Kagoshima Prefecture. It has umami and an astonishing creamy floral fragrance. Noted for being very early, it remains little grown outside the islands of Tanegashima and Yakushima.