This is Wazuka.
It's a small town in the prefecture of Kyoto.
About an hour's drive South East of the capital city, also named Kyoto.
Wazuka is a town in decline.
In 1955 the population peaked at 7,614.
Now the population is half that at 3,628.
So why did Daiki Tanaka, born and raised in Tokyo, decide to quit his corporate job
and move to this small town with his wife, brother, and his brother's friend?
To be in this lovely brochure about life in Wazuka.
Well, not exactly.
It so happens that Wazuka specializes in producing tea,
and worldwide demand for green tea, if you can trust expensive reports like this one, is on the rise.
Before opening up their tea company, they all studied agriculture at university,
and this was their chance to put their studies into action,
while continuing the 800 year old town tradition of making tea.
The company is called d:matcha, and it specializes in tea.
From producing, to selling, to educating both Japanese and visitors from abroad.
If you've ever wondered how your cup of tea got to you,
From green tea, to oolong, to black tea,
keep on watching, as we'll walk through the fields, go into the factory, and taste the final results.
And by the way, since I've been doing a few sponsored videos recently, this is not a sponsored video.
But rather a chance I got to go behind-the-scenes thanks to a friend of a friend.
So let's go!
The Wazuka is very famous as the main production site of the Uji green tea.
Maybe almost over 90% people know Uji green tea is the most premium brand of Japanese green tea.
But very few people knows about the actual production site.
The biggest production site is Wazuka.
This area is very suitable for the premium category of Japanese green tea.
More than thousand thousand years ago this area was under the lake, so the soil have a lots of mineral.
That's good for a nicer tea.
And because of this mountain landscape, especially in the morning,
in spring we have so many fog, very foggy here.
The fog is also quite important to produce sweeter taste of tea,
Because a rich tea has a lot of amino acid inside the tea leaves.
But if they gets the strong sunshine the amino acid becomes bitterness.
So the fog is kind of natural curtain to cut the certain amount of the sun.
So that background creates a lot of farmers
in Wazuka there are more than 300 different tea, tea farm, families.
So they are competing each other in the quality,
but the same time, the farmers in Japan, are cooperating in the processing.
So several farmers are sharing the processing factories.
So we are never kick out of others,
But it's like a very healthy competition with each other.
Something unique that Daiki's family does in comparison to other tea farming families
is provide tours of the tea fields,
As part of their effort to bridge the gap between tea drinkers and farmers.
They think that being able to feel, see, and taste the tea
is an easy way to understand and fully appreciate the process.
So to the top, there's a temple which was a start of tea in this region.
To the temple, 2.1 kilometers.
But our goal is our tea farm, which is not 2.1.
It's around 300 meters.
What you might have noticed is that this particular tea field is way up on the mountain.
It used to be farmed by an elderly lady,
but because, you know, it's hard to get to and not the easiest to farm,
Daiki's younger crew has taken it over, and even they struggle at times to gain a foothold.
What they're doing right now is not harvesting the tea,
but rather, trimming the trees so that they can later harvest the new leaf buds that will soon emerge.
During the tour, I couldn't help but notice two things:
Fans and covers.
This is why they're used.
As we heard, the fog in Wazuka creates a natural curtain from the sun
that helps prevent too much of the amino acids
from turning into catechin (cat-e-kin), which accounts for the bitter taste.
For most teas they produce, that natural barrier is sufficient.
But for premium gyokuro and for tencha, which is used to make matcha powder,
They cover those leaves for 3 weeks
to preserve the amino acids and thus the sweet and umami taste profiles.
And then there's the fans.
They use fans with automatic temperature sensors to prevent frost damage.
The fans work because the air just metres above the ground can be many degrees warmer,
so they simply push that warmer air down,
preventing frost from forming and damaging young tea leaves.
After the tour, the tea leaves that guests picked are turned into tempura,
and a green tea tasting and education session ensues.
And we have three varieties of sencha today,
Yabukita, okumidori, goko.
What she's explaining is that they will taste test three varieties of sencha.
Before this, I had no clue that varieties even existed.
But if you think about wines and their many varietals,
from cabernet sauvignon to merlot, it makes sense.
Even me, I did not know there are so many different variety of the tea
But like actually, the reality is the taste is quite different depending on the tea varieties.
So those parties of people are really enjoying it.
The one variety is, it's not good or bad.
Hundred people has a hundred choices, so that's what we want to explain and also show them.
Now here's what really made me realize that I knew nothing about green tea.
Not only is there this huge registered and unregistered list of Japanese tea cultivars,
But there are three different flushes or harvests,
as well as multiple processing methods that result in different types of tea from black to matcha.
So in this region we harvest three times a year.
But the price and the quality is very different depending on when you harvest.
The best one is we call ichibancha,
in English, the first flush, is in April to May.
So for the sencha, we only use that one for the brewing for the customers.
And also for the matcha, the first flush is used for tea ceremony and the ceremonial stuff.
And the second one is in July, which is a little bit bitter
because of the sun and also tea already used some nutrition for the first flush.
So it's a little bit bitter, so we are using that one for latte and confectionaries.
And the third one is in October,
we don't use it but big companies using that one for bottled tea or confectioneries;
those kind of different usage.
So after harvesting, we...
we must...
carry immediately to factory.
Then processing start.
So we put tea leaves here,
This is conveyor.
Come here, then we steam tea leaves here.
Then we stop the fermentation.
Then come the tea leaves here,
and go like this.
This is like a dryer.
We dry the tea leaves step by step.
Then come here...
Then this one, we are move like this.
Then come here.
We roll like this,
Spread out the moisture of the tea leaves.
The shape becomes...
Sharp.
Then this machine will move rolling.
And dry and low and come here.
Then we take by hand here,
The tea leaves come this machine
Move like this; ga-cha, ga-cha, ga-cha, ga-cha.
The tea leaves become like sharp.
By this machine.
And then dry.
Then come the dryer.
Final, right here.
So it gets dried so many times?
Yeah.
But we want to dry also inside too.
So we must dry step by step.
Then come here, this is dryer, final dryer.
And this is conveyor like moving...
- Okay so it goes, okay wait... -Yeah.
Sorry.
It goes from there all the way.
By wind.
And come here.
- Okay. - Yep.
What you just saw was the process of making sencha,
the type you're probably thinking of when someone says green tea.
However...
Green tea, and oolong tea, and black tea are like different fermented stage.
Yeah, when you're processing tea,
the difference between sencha, oolong, and black, is how much you oxidize the leaves.
Generally speaking, to make sencha
you steam the leaves immediately, stopping the oxidation process.
While with oolong, you partially oxidize the leaves,
and with black, you let the leaves fully oxidize.
This is why green tea contains more antioxidants,
whereas black tea contains more caffeine and tannin.
But we're not done with our tea lesson just yet, because there are many more types.
And what surprised me the most, was that they all come from the same tree, the Camellia sinensis.
Yes, there are different cultivars, but it's all the same tree.
So matcha, gyokuro, sencha, houjicha, oolong, and black,
all use leaves from the Camellia sinensis.
Houjicha is processed the same as sencha, except it's also roasted,
Which is why it's name in English is roasted green tea.
Gyokuro is also processed like sencha,
Except before harvest, the leaves get covered for 3 weeks to preserve the umami and sweetness.
Now matcha, on the other hand, gets covered for 3 weeks before harvest like gyokuro,
but it only gets steamed and dried, not rolled.
Instead, the dried leaves are ground into a powder.
This is a hand grinder.
So in a factory it'd be automated, but still the process takes long
and uses the highest quality leaves, so it's more expensive.
So to recap, all tea comes from the same tree, the Camellia Sinensis.
There are three harvests, the first being the most premium.
There are hundreds of cultivars,
and there are many ways to process and mix the tea to make a multitude of types.
I mean, I didn't even mention my favourite,
genmaicha, which is typically a blend of roasted rice and bancha or sencha.
Even though it's a lower grade and cheaper tea, what can I say,
I like the nutty flavour.
This is why Daiki wants the world to know that green tea is quite similar to wine.
The biggest motivation is
we would like to make the green tea, the industry, like wine industry.
Because there are lots of different quality and grade of the tea
But in the market, it's very difficult to identify.
So like such crappy, yellow, just bitter tea, is also sell as tea.
But in reality the taste is very different depending on the location and tea field.
So like, we would like to create those kind of brand.
And let guests understand easier to the difference in the production site.
Daiki and his wife, Misato are expecting their first child soon,
So I asked if it was scary to be running a relatively new business.
Green tea is part of our culture.
So I want to inherit this.
And then success (sic) to them.
My baby or...
So...
Not so scary and...
Sometimes I work all day, from morning to night.
But like, um...
I'm sleep at you know, at good time, like before 12 o'clock, and I woke up like 7 or those kind of...
So, that's totally healthy.
I'm actually really enjoying to do this whole stuff.
Like a hobby?
Very exciting and enjoyable.
Like, even I'm washing dishes, I feel happiness, so...
I don't think it's like really work.
It's like kind of my part of my life.
So, I mean...
Yeah.
At the end of the day, the thing I liked the most about their whole set-up, was that they ate as a group.
No, not everything had tea in it.
But it was nice to see everyone share a meal.
But if you do visit, you can get tea in most anything at the cafe.
From your tantanmen and pasta, to an assortment of desserts and sweets, to the multitude of drinks.
And if you can't visit, they also have an online store where they deliver tea around the world.
However, I'd really suggest visiting in person,
if you're looking for that authentic Japanese experience.
Not only were the sights in the small town beautiful,
but the food and drink, admittedly like most areas in Japan, were a real treat.
Thanks for watching, see you next time, bye!