This video shows how green tea is grown and made.

Tour a small tea processing factory in Shizuoka, Japan. This small home-based factory is operated by the Oyama family for processing tea grown in their own tea fields. See how the tea is processed from steaming, roasting, mashing mixing and cutting.

I add some lemon juice and honey to my tea. Do some people in Japan and Taiwan serve and/or sell fruit flavored green tea?

The best Japanese green tea is shin-cha or “new tea” which is the year’s first harvest. May is the tea harvest season throughout most of Japan and many farmers take special care to select the best leaves for use in making shin-cha. While hiking in the hills near our home we met a nice family who were spending the day picking shin-cha the old fashioned way, by hand. Most Japanese farmers use machines to harvest the tea and it was a real treat for us to have a chance to watch this family bring in the harvest the old fashioned way. This friendly family were quick to invite us to join them and our daughter Emily received special instructions from the grandmother on how to properly pick green tea by hand. We were invited to share summer oranges as they took their break and they told us of how the people of their village had slowly reclaimed land from the river bed over several centuries to produce the tea fields they were now working in. Their large farmhouse stood at the top of a nearby hill overlooking the beautiful valley. They even gave us their cards which they made themselves and which proudly featured photos of their tea fields and their lovely village. At the end of this video you will see the extend of this family’s tea field which they told us would provide them with enough tea for their own consumption for a single year.

Few young Japanese wish to live the life of a tea farmer in the beautiful and remote mountains of central Honshu. As a result, many farms are abandoned and left untended after the aging farmer dies or decides to retire. This tea field was likely abandoned within the last year as the shape of the plants is still distinct yet the rows are clearly overgrown and no tea has been harvested. Within another year the tea plants will likely be completely overgrown and the site barely recognizable as a tea field. I sometimes happen across such fields which have been completely reclaimed by the forest, with the only sign of man’s former presence being the distinct stone walls of the field’s terrace. After I filmed this video I wandered down the road another 100 yards to a dead end where a lovely old farm house was found. The home was modest yet full of charm and life, all of which was the doing of a spry old woman who is the home’s sole occupant. I would not have troubled the woman had she not been outside tending her garden when I passed by. She was very happy and talkative and clearly delighted to have a visitor. Her garden was lovely with a modest vegetable plot and many potted plants and assorted bonsai. Water from a nearby stream trickled through pipes to fill a small carp pond. And a small cemetery plot could be seen above her home which is often a sign that the family has been living in this spot for a very long time. I was a bit uncomfortable as I feared I was intruding so I …

A form of spiritual art. Mariko-san impressed me with her elegant movement, deep knowledge, and thoughtful attention to every detail. Music by “Gagaku” singing ‘Hichiriki’ Traditional Japanese court music found by itunes podcast directory. From www.Wikipedia.org The Japanese tea ceremony (chanoyu 茶の湯, lit. “tea hot-water”; also called chadō or sadō, 茶道, “the way of tea”) is a multifaceted traditional activity based on Taoism (Daoism) and influenced by Zen Buddhism, in which powdered green tea, or matcha (抹茶), is ceremonially prepared and served to others. The get-togethers for chanoyu are called chakai (literally “tea meeting”) or chaji (literally “tea function”). Usually the term chakai is used to refer to a relatively simple course of hospitality that includes the service of confections, usucha (thin tea), and perhaps tenshin (a light snack), while the term chaji refers to a more formal course of hospitality including kaiseki (a special kind of full-course meal), confections, koicha (thick tea), and usucha (thin tea). A chaji may last up to four hours. A tea practitioner should strive to be knowledgable if not expert in the wide range of disciplines and traditional arts that are integral to chanoyu — for example, the production and types of tea, kimono, calligraphy, flower arranging, ceramics, and incense — in addition to his or her school’s tea practices. Because of this, the study of the tea ceremony is virtually endless. [1] Even to participate as a guest in …

This short video shows how machines are used by Japanese tea farmers to cut green tea leaves from the plant. The cutter is operated by two people and it is very common in our part of Japan (Shizuoka, near Mt. Fuji) to see husband and wife pairs working together at this job. The couple in the video likely own the tea field where they are working and may process the tea themselves if they have the proper equipment. Such tea may then carry the family’s own label and display their company or family name. Alternately, the tea they harvest may be brought to a nearby tea processing facility operated jointly by the various tea farmers in the area. Tea processed in this fashion will usually then carry a brand which is common to all of the members of the tea collective.

The beverage industry in Japan is fiercely competitive with vending machines on nearly every street corner and new and interesting concoctions and campaigns being placed before the consumer every month. One of the most interesting results of this fight for market share is the periodic release by the big names of Coke and Pepsi of unique and interesting variations on their traditional cola flavors. The most recent to appear is Green Tea Flavor Coca Cola which is being reviewed with this video. However, the first prize in the uncanny category must go to Pepsi for their short-lived summer release of Cucumber-flavor Pepsi. As if the name alone was not enough to twist your lips the light green bottle was an eye-opener to every cold beverage fan who happened upon this drink during the summer months of 2007 (I may be wrong about the year).

While hiking in the mountains recently I met an 80 year old man who invited me to visit his mountain top green tea farm. The man bought and cleared the land at the top of this mountain over 60 years ago and has been climbing the mountain ever since to tend and care for his fields. He is one of the last tea farmers in the area to harvest all of his tea by hand and he uses no machines to assist in bringing the tea down the mountain. The large basket he carries on this back will be filled with the day’s harvest before he returns home in the evening. This man was very proud of his tea fields and his family’s long history of farming the mountains of the Japan Southern Alps.