A small company, a shared cup
nagori was founded by people brought together by loose-leaf tea. We're building the shop we would like to buy from ourselves: a few teas instead of hundreds, each one tried at our own table and with the harvest date on the label.
We are a small company that grew out of a shared love of tea. We know from our own cups how different fresh sencha is from one that has sat in a warehouse for a year. And how hard it is in Poland to buy tea that tells you when and where it was harvested.
So we decided to import it ourselves. A small selection in which we know every tea. Small packs, so the tea doesn't go stale in the cupboard. And full information on the label: the farm, the harvest, the batch number and how to brew it.
We don't pretend to be a big company. We weigh, pack and ship every pack ourselves, so we know exactly what reaches you.
How we choose our teas
For us, premium means what is in the cup, not the packaging. We apply these rules to every tea in the shop and in the subscription.
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3 infusionswhen tasting
Tasting comes first
Before a tea goes into the shop, we brew it several times, at different temperatures, and judge it together: aroma, flavour, the later infusions and the price per gram. It only gets in if we want to drink it every day ourselves.
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4 countriesat the source
We buy as close to the farm as we can
Japanese teas directly from family farms, Taiwanese teas from the Ali Shan mountains, Darjeeling from the gardens, Chinese teas from a European warehouse with documented batch origin.
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Batchchecked
Every batch goes through a test
We brew each new sack of the same tea again before packing. If it tastes different from the previous one, we don't sell it under the same name.
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Harveston the label
A harvest date instead of promises
Every pack shows the farm, the year and season of the harvest, and the batch number. You can check how many months old the tea is.
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Small batchesno stockpiles
Fresh rather than warehoused
We buy as much as we will sell in a few months and keep the tea in airtight containers away from light. When a batch runs out, we wait for the next one.
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50 gpacked by hand
Packaging that protects the flavour
Resealable bags with a barrier layer, matcha in a tin, plus a brewing card. We pack every pack by hand.
Why nagori
Nagori is the Japanese word for what remains when something ends: a trace, an aftertaste, a tenderness towards something that is just passing. In the tea ceremony calendar it is also the name for October.
It used to be written with the characters 余波, “the waves that remained”. Today it is written 名残: “name” and “to remain”, meaning what is left behind by someone or something. This one word holds the whole Japanese sensitivity to things passing, and that is why we chose it as the name of our shop.
The tea year in Japan
Ceremonial tea has a calendar of its own. Nagori is its second-to-last chapter, just before the tea New Year.
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May
First harvest
The youngest spring leaves are picked. Those meant for ceremonial matcha (tencha) go into clay chatsubo jars, which are tightly sealed.
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Summer
Maturing
The sealed tea rests somewhere cool all summer. Its flavour mellows and gains depth. Until then, people drink the previous year's leaves.
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October
Nagori: the farewell
Only the last handfuls of last year's leaves are left in the jar. Tea masters hold nagori no chaji, a farewell gathering: they finish the old tea and say goodbye to the portable furo brazier, in use since May.
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November
Kuchikiri: the tea New Year
The host cuts the seal on the jar and grinds this year's leaves for the first time. In the tea room, the hearth set into the floor is opened. People of tea call this moment their New Year.
A farewell that is a celebration
The October tea gathering is unlike any other. There is little tea left, so every cup is drunk more attentively. The host deliberately reaches for old, chipped utensils, sometimes mended with lacquer and gold (kintsugi). Here a crack is not a flaw but a trace of the object's history.
Behind this lies the Japanese sensibility of mono no aware: being moved by the fact that things pass. It isn't about sadness. It is about noticing that something is beautiful precisely because it won't last for ever.
Three moments of every season
In Japanese cooking every ingredient has three moments. Kaiseki chefs, whose cuisine is tied to the tea ceremony, plan their menus so that you can taste them on the plate.
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Hashiri
The first. Long awaited, rare and expensive. The flavour is still young, but it brings joy because it announces the season.
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Shun
The peak. The moment when an ingredient tastes its best. Sometimes it lasts only two weeks.
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Nagori
The last. The final chance to taste something before it disappears for a year. It is savoured with the tenderness of a farewell.
What the name means to us
For us the name is a commitment. It reminds us that tea is a living product with a season, not an ageless commodity.
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Harveston the label
Every tea has its time
That's why every pack says when the leaves were harvested. You know whether you're drinking this year's sencha or last year's.
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走りspring
We respect the seasons
In spring we wait for the fresh harvests, shincha and Darjeeling first flush, and write about them openly instead of pretending that tea is always the same.
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名残end of a batch
We call the last packs what they are
When a batch is running out, we say so plainly. Then we wait for the next one instead of topping it up with older tea.
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一期一会ichigo ichie
Every cup is one of a kind
In the tea ceremony people say ichigo ichie: one meeting, one chance. That is why we add a brewing card to every pack, so that no cup goes to waste.
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Oct 2026the beginning
We started in the month of nagori
Our shop was founded in October 2026, at the time when Japan finishes the last of the old leaves and waits for the new ones. It is hard to think of a better moment to begin.
Nagori is not sadness that something is ending. It is noticing that it is still here.
Write to us
Questions about tea, orders for businesses, working with a café: kontakt@nagori.pl. We reply personally, not with an autoresponder.
First batch list
Sign up and we'll email you when the teas arrive from Japan (December 2026). You'll get a personal −10% code for your first order. We write rarely: about the launch, new harvests and the holidays.