Cold Snap in April Slowed Early Buds
WAZUKA, Kyoto
The Azuma family has been farming tea now for 150 years in the beautiful village of Wazuka, Kyoto, where much of the famed Uji tea is grown.
“I am 73 years old this year, the 4th generation in my family, and have been learning the tea craft since I was in elementary school. But you know, I have only harvested tea maybe 50 times now, and it really takes practice, so every year I think, “next year I will try harder!” writes Shusaku Azuma at the Azuma Tea Garden; Wazuka, Kyoto.
“You can only harvest spring’s most premium tea leaves once a year, and if the weather negatively influences the crop, you need to wait until the next year to start over. In Japan, we call it the “farmer’s next year,” writes Azuma.
“This year, the leaves began coming out on March 31, about 4 days earlier than last year and 6 days earlier than average. However, in the middle of April we had cold weather for many days which slowed the growth of the cultivars that usually grow faster. The slower growing cultivars developed well, so timing wise they were ready to harvest at about the same time, making harvest time extremely busy as we rushed to harvest and process the leaves. The farms in the area with fans to circulate the air above the fields, and the farms located in the mountains had better crops,” he observes.
“I always say, in order to make the healthy drink that is tea, you need tea itself to be healthy. For this reason, my family and I have been reducing our use of pesticides as much as possible and are in the process of moving our fields to certified organic cultivation. I hope you’ll enjoy our delicious tea from Wazuka!,” writes Azuma.
Azuma specializes in the production of tencha, the green tea leaf flakes used to make matcha but Azuma also experiments with wulong and the production of black tea from both the Samidori and Gokou cultivars.
Late Blooming Sakura
FUJIEDA, Shizuoka
“The tea farmers in our region have always looked to the blooming of the sakura (Japanese cherry) blossoms as the sign that the year’s new leaves will start to appear,” writes Tamiko Kinezuka at the NaturaliTea Tea Farm, in Fujieda, Shizuoka prefecture. The garden is located near Nakayama Village two and a half hours south of Tokyo.
“The blooming of the sakura this year was late, and everyone said the shincha, the new tea leaves, would also be late. However, the leaves were actually one week early. I can’t help but feel the natural signs we have always used are getting harder to read because of the environmental change. This year, we had very little damage from frost, and were able to harvest very good leaves,” writes Kinezuka.
“Several years ago, we had huge frost damage. At the time of the year when tea farmers should shine the most, in one night the frost ruined it all. A beautiful, windless night when you can see a sky full of stars is the worst for tea. They are sleepless nights for us as we worry about the falling temperature. Tea farmers like us live together with the natural world. We receive the wisdom and blessing of nature, and at times we are made to cry. There are hard times, but there are also times of much greater joy,” writes Kinezuka.
Quake Collapses Tea Room but Farm Undamaged
MASHIKI, Kumamoto
“Spring. A wonderful season with the rustling of the wind through new budding green leaves. Usually, we would be waiting impatiently for the moment when we could pluck the new shincha tea leaves. But this year, just as our hearts were aflutter with thoughts of shincha, the Kumamoto Earthquake struck,” writes Kenji Tomizawa.
Tomizawa is a 4th-generation farmer who operates Tomizawa Tea Garden and a local tea shop in Mashiki, a town of about 32,600 people in Kumamoto prefecture on Kyushu, the most south westerly of the four main islands in the Japanese archipelago.
Kumamoto is the location of 5,225 foot (1,592 meter) Mt. Aso the largest active volcano in Japan.
“Our lives were turned upside down in that moment. However, miraculously the processing factories in our area and 90% of the tea fields were untouched. With the help of volunteers and neighboring farmers we were able to harvest and process this year’s shincha. The sweetness, umami, astringency of the leaves…perhaps it’s just a feeling, but this year’s shincha is powerful! We hope you can feel the power of Kumamoto.”
Note: The town of Mashiki, Kumamoto, was one of the hardest hit by the series of earthquakes on April 14-16. The quakes killed 49 people, injured 3,000 and forced the evacuation of 44,000. The Tomizawa family lost their tea shop in the 7.3-magnitude quake, but their fields were luckily untouched allowing Kenji to begin harvesting on April 22.
