Chuo-ku Tourism Association correspondent blog

Hello. This is a new correspondent, Hanes.
The other day, I went to the 72nd National Tea Festival (Tea Festival) held in Nihonbashi!
This event has been held in the tea production area until now, and we are aiming for Tokyo 2020.
I want overseas people to know the goodness of Japanese tea.
This event was held in Tokyo, a big city.



In this event, we will introduce Japanese tea, tasting and tasting, hand fir experience, and brewing experience.
Panel discussion, food education seminar, keynote speech, collaboration session holding,
There are a variety of product sales corners by exhibiting organizations
There were a variety of teas in the venue, and the first thing I went to was....



■Hand fir tea experience corner (Ibaraki Prefectural Sashima Tea Hand Massage Preservation Society)
At first I saw it from a distance, but I had you call out and experienced hand fir tea.
The tea leaves still contain a lot of water, so we want to remove the water.
I swayed on the drying table
What I actually experienced and felt was that the good scent of tea smells softly when shaken!
It is fresher and more fragrant than tea as a drink.
I'm glad that my hands are smooth!



According to the story, it will take at least 5 hours before it becomes tea.
It's a story that seems to be far away, but delicious tea takes a certain amount of time and effort!
After swaying, rotate fir is performed, and then dried through various fir methods.



Sarushima tea was not only transported to Edo using the water transport of the Tone River and was highly evaluated.
It is also famous in history as tea exported overseas for the first time in Japan.
It is a tea that cannot be overlooked for me who is born in Ibaraki Prefecture and loves history.

■Uji City Agriculture, Forestry and Tea Industry Division, Kyoto Prefectural Tea Industry Chamber
Next, I went to a booth in Uji City, which is famous for matcha.
Here, Tentama, a blend of Tencha and Gyokuro, which are the raw materials of matcha, was introduced.
Unlike sencha and bancha, Tencha and Gyokuro are different from sencha and Bancha, and it seems that the taste of tea leaves is condensed by cultivation in blocking sunlight.
It was the first tea I heard, but the flavor was completely different from the light green tea.



Next door, I was able to teach me how to make matcha and taste it.



■Shizuoka Tea Promotion Division
At this booth, you will receive a tea can through an SNS-linked campaign at the Fujinokuni Tea City Museum.
I learned that the World Tea Festival will be held in Shizuoka Prefecture in May and November next year.



In addition, the tea plantation farming method in Shizuoka, which is a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System, is not only a method for producing high-quality tea.
I learned that it is an environmentally friendly traditional farming method that fosters biodiversity and is also effective in mitigating global warming.
A certified sticker for this farming method is affixed to the package of Kakegawa tea purchased before.
I vaguely had the image of "tea produced with particular focus on traditional farming".
By knowing that it was an effort on a much larger scale than that.
It was an opportunity to review the splendor of this farming method, which has been inherited in Shizuoka.

■Kumamoto Prefectural Economic Federation Tea Production and Distribution Council, Minamikyushu City Tea Distribution Measures Council
Minamikyushu City on the left side (the southernmost tip of Japan's mainland!) At the booth
We tasted Chiran tea, which boasts the largest production volume in Japan.



There seem to be many varieties of Chiran tea, but it was easy to drink because of the seaside.
Just by tasting several kinds of tea so far, the astringency, sweetfish, fragrance, etc. are clearly different, respectively.
I was aware of the many types of Japanese tea that are often forgotten in the present age when PET bottle tea became established.

As in Japan, U.K. (Tea) is a country famous for its tea culture.
There are few black teas in plastic bottles in supermarkets in the UK.
(I've only seen lipton flavor tea.)
At home, tea is brewed and drunk with tea leaves or tea bags, and on the go, the tea is brewed in the same way in a tea room or mobile sales car.
Now that Japanese food has become a global boom, we have once again confirmed the goodness of Japanese tea (of tea leaves) and confirmed the importance of Japanese tea.
It would be nice if we could communicate the appeal to overseas people.

Continue

■Reference website
Ibaraki Prefecture "Information 008: Ibaraki's Sarushima tea that crossed the sea for the first time in Japan"
http://www.pref.ibaraki.jp/bugai/koho/kenmin/hakase/info/08/index.html
Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System's "Shizuoka Tea Planting Farming Methods" Promotion Council "Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System Shizuoka Tea Planting Farming Methods"
https://www.chagusaba.jp/