(Well, Yakushima is farther, but then the island is quite small, and tea from there is incredibly hard to get.)
The short answer, according to our grower–artisans, is that demand is in fact going up, which is good for them — unless they have to raise prices or reduce their shipments to Mellow Monk.
So far, that is not happening, and we at Mellow Monk are working hard to avoid price increases or stockouts.
Stay tuned, and stay mellow.

A park in the southern half of the Mt. Aso caldera. One of our growers has a tea estate in the foothills just on the other side of the mountain.
—Mellow Monk
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