What is Yakuzen Tea?
Food as Medicine
I never wanted yakuzen to become another special health regimen. Not something you drink because it's good for you, gritting your teeth through it — but something you keep coming back to simply because it tastes good. Studying Chinese medicine taught me that you can't understand the body in isolation. Season, climate, land — all of it has to be part of the picture before something truly becomes yakuzen. So I didn't want to choose tea leaves from behind a desk. I walk the estates in Sri Lanka myself, see the land with my own eyes, taste it with my own tongue. Every CHOKKI tea has been checked that way, one cup at a time.
Balance & Harmony
Balance isn't something I calculate. For me, it lives in the individuality of small producers and single-estate leaf — not the uniform taste of a large plantation. One cup I had in Sri Lanka wasn't a blending ingredient; it was already whole on its own. That's why I hold onto two things at once: blends built from yakuzen ingredients, and single-origin teas left as they are. Bringing things into balance, and letting something stay exactly as it is — for CHOKKI, harmony only exists when both are true.
Eating with the Seasons
The same leaf can taste completely different depending on the land, the water, the climate, the person growing it. I didn't learn this from a book — I learned it by visiting one estate after another in Sri Lanka, tasting the difference for myself. The Chinese medicine idea that people and nature can't be separated stopped being theory the moment I stood on that ground. So for me, eating with the seasons isn't about following a set of rules. It's about receiving what the land and climate have shaped, as it is. That's why CHOKKI's teas change shape with the seasons.
Founder
Satsuki Matsumoto
International TCM Medicinal Cuisine Specialist
International Medicinal Cuisine Instructor
Graduated from the Medicinal Cuisine Program at the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine Japan School (currently the Japan College of TCM).
Founded "Yakuzen Food & Tea CHOKKI" in 2014.
While studying Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), studied under an Ayurvedic physician and mastered Sri Lankan cuisine based on Ayurvedic principles.