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hey guys welcome to
the middle of the rice fields in
tsuruoka city in yamagata prefecture
it's about 6 p.m right now
and i've just come to this gorgeous
traditional japanese home you guys will
see a little bit more of it
in a second here i'm actually going to
spend the night here i'm coming for
dinner to start off with then i'm going
to spend the night
do a little homestay experience and in
the morning we're going to be harvesting
some soybeans together so sudoroka city
is actually famous for a certain type of
soybean called darachamame and we're
gonna be harvesting them in the morning
the last time i did
a farm homestay was in akita prefecture
maybe you guys remember it was a few
years ago now but it was such a cool
experience that i've been wanting to do
it
again for ages so really happy to be
here let's go inside and have some
dinner and i'll show you the house
so the name of this inn that we're
staying at today is omoya
and now we're about to meet the owner
norimasan
uh
i'm gonna give you guys a quick tour of
the house it's so cool it's 130 years
old it's such a huge
farmhouse and it's just amazing come in
here
here's where you'll you'll check in huge
ceilings
they're so tall which is really rare in
japan so it just feels so grand
and spacious
over on the left we have one of the
bedrooms for guests to stay
look at the view outside the mountains
and the rice fields are so gorgeous
and down the hall here they've got male
and female washrooms for the guests to
use there's an
area here where you can wash your face
and brush your teeth
and around the corner there's a shower
room for guests
as well nori's family lives upstairs
so we won't be going up there so today i
am joined by hiroshan who's actually
a da dachamame farmer here in tsuroka
but i'm about to try some for the first
time so let's see if there really is a
difference
with regular edamame that i'm used to it
looks just like
the typical edamame that you would get
at any japanese restaurant but let's see
if they taste
any different it's got the scent of a
regular edamame but a lot
stronger
so it's the flavor of an edamame if
you've had a regular edamame
before but stronger and the aftertaste
is really nice
but they're kind of addictive it's like
eating potato chips
the flavor is so nice that you just want
to keep eating them
and they're so good in the summer it's
so hot today you guys can probably hear
the bugs tripping in the background it's
super humid it's the middle of summer in
japan right now
and this is such a perfect snack
we are enjoying the most delicious meal
all of the vegetables are organic
the rice they use is organic everything
is just super fresh
and has that home-cooked taste it's
really yummy so
if you guys find yourself in the tsuroka
area and you're looking for a really
good meal
highly recommend this restaurant so the
room i'll be spending the night in is
just down the hall here
a nice futon for me it's basically like
staying
in ryokan they've prepared some tea
and some towels and some extra clothes
to wear that's really nice
so hiro just told me that we will be
waking up at about 4 a.m tomorrow
morning to go pick tadacha beans
so i think i'm gonna head to bed pretty
early time it's only 9 30. i have no
idea if i'm gonna be able to fall
asleep i usually go to bed after
midnight but i'm gonna try my best
i will see you guys in the morning
hopefully after getting at least a few
hours of sleep
bye for now good morning guys it is
currently 4
10 in the morning i managed to wake up
before the sun
i'm just waiting for my friend derek to
join me who also stayed here
last night other residents of the home
are still sleeping so i gotta be quiet
but yeah look it's still dark outside
we're gonna see the sunrise i haven't
seen the sunrise in years i usually go
to bed at this time
if anything bio
oh look it's starting oh that's gonna be
nice
oh tractor
[Laughter]
okay i guess this is it
are we at the wrong farm are we scaring
the locals
oh
now we're driving from his workplace out
to the fields
and someone's just coming up now so when
we arrive in the field i think it should
be just perfect
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look closely you can see the little
beans
i've never seen an edamame plant before
first time
like this how many beans can you get
from one plant
100 to 200 wow it depends on
how it grows like it has too much damage
it becomes very few things
right so this year in japan there was so
much rain
so your crop is less this year because
of it yeah
uh
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foreign
the machine makes this so much easier
when did you get the machine the
harvesting machine
until then always by hand
oh my god
[Laughter]
so hiro is growing over 20 types of
dadacha mame here
and the reason is because each different
type of darachamame has a peak
where they taste the best so they're
kind of spread out so that he can
harvest
really delicious beans all throughout
the season so we go back to
my house and we see how they pick up the
beans and stuff
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so now we're back at hiro's home at its
factory and he's going to show us
how we're going to take these beans that
we just harvested put them through the
blue machine behind us which will pick
the beans off the stems
and then we'll wash them and separate
them all right the boys are back from
their break and they're getting ready to
start up the machines
so you guys will see how it works in a
second here i think it's going to be
pretty loud
maybe uh turn down your volume
keto is just explaining to us that might
either have one
two or sometimes three beans inside the
pod
and the single bean da dachamame aren't
really desirable so he has a special
machine here
to sort out the different sizes of beans
and then the single beans they don't go
to waste they use these in ice creams or
soups or
other products and these beans will be
sold at the markets
so the final step is to sift through all
the edamame
and take other ones with scratches or
leaves
or if any of the single pod edamame
remains they'll pick those
out he's got a whole team of people in
here sifting through
all the beans to make sure only the very
best ones are headed out to the stores
they're being packaged and sold for
about 850 yen per package so they're
quite expensive these are
the best of the best
so people often wonder why produce is so
expensive in japan vegetables and fruits
it's because every single step of the
process is done by hand
and only the best produce makes it to
the final stage and makes it
into the shop so there's a reason that
it's expensive
lots of work goes into making the most
beautiful
perfect product all right it's all
finished it's
ready to be eaten we're going to take
them back to our home stay and learn how
to cook them
wow norison prepared a beautiful
breakfast for us
look at that homemade onigiri rice balls
we're back in lolita and he's going to
help us cook the delicious harvested
the farmer homsey is right over there
but right next to his farmer homestay he
has this beautiful cafe
and look out the window right here
beautiful view of the rice fields
and that's mount kimbo over there and
off of the distance that's mount that's
mount gason
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foreign
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um
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um so if you guys want to try dachamame
you've got to come here to tsuruka
to the hometown that grows them thank
you so
much for today you're welcome thank you
it's a great experience
yeah take care i hope to come back soon
see you again okay
okay bye-bye
take care bye
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you