The Rare Japanese Green Tea That Helps In Skin Regeneration

The ingredient is so uncommon that the top-of the-line cream from this range costs $1,650. Mary-Ann Soh finds out more about Decorte’s revamped anti-ageing skincare line.

With mountains that reach for the sky, numerous waterfalls and lush greenery, the island of Yakushima off the southern coast of Kyushu often has a misty landscape as it gets the most rainfall in Japan annually. It is believed that it rains somewhere on the island every day.

These conditions make the World Heritage Site a paradise for tea cultivation, especially for a rare variety of green tea called benifuki, which accounts for only a small percentage of all the tea produced in Japan.

Compared with ordinary tea, benifuki is exceptional because it contains a higher concentration of methylated catechin, an active ingredient with anti-allergy properties.

And benifuki extract, harnessed from the young buds of the organically cultivated tea, is a new ingredient used in Japanese skincare brand Decorte’s AQ Meliority range, which will be relaunched in September following the brand’s scientific breakthroughs in skincare research over the past decade. AQ Meliority, which stands for absolute quality and superior technology, is the brand’s most luxurious anti-ageing skincare range.

THE ULTIMATE SKINCARE

AIM Inspired by regenerative medicine, Decorte researchers sought to discover what they believed to be the ultimate goal of anti-ageing care – skin regeneration. They found that three key elements – cells, scaffolds and growth factor (GF) – are crucial to tissue regeneration.