Leaves Steeped in Tradition
Jackie Husted (Shizuoka)
If you’ve been to Shizuoka, you might know that it’s famous for green tea. Today, the prefecture accounts for nearly 40% of tea production in Japan. For Akito Ohashi, a native Shizuokan and tea tour guide, tea isn’t just a drink—it’s meditation, social connection, and, of course, business. But with more and more farmers aging out of the industry and a shrinking demand for loose leaf tea, what lies in the future for this region’s treasure?
Our Tea Expert
Akito takes visitors around the tea fields on his family farm, carefully explaining the region’s tea industry and sharing his personal experiences working within it. Even in the sweltering sun, he recounts his story.
Akito’s grandparents were tea farmers but, having no interest in the business as a young man, he moved to Yokohama to pursue a career in marketing. Around 10 years ago, however, he returned to his hometown with an American friend and showed her around his family’s farm. Through this, Akito felt a deeper appreciation for tea cultivation and realized the value in connecting with others to share it. He pulled back to his roots, he returned to Shizuoka to work as a tour guide and occasional farmer.
What’s the Deal with Shizuoka Tea?
Loose leaf tea can vary greatly depending on where it’s from. According to Akito, “Even if it’s the same sencha, the flavor can be really different depending on the area, farmers, climate, geography, and soil.”
With its warm climate and rich soil, fortified with volcanic ash from Mount Fuji, Shizuoka has fantastic tea-growing conditions. This has been well-known since the Edo period, when the prefecture was established by the Tokugawa shogunate as one of the nation’s prime tea producers.
Akito’s farm mainly produces sencha, the variety of tea most commonly consumed in Japan. Specifically, they make aracha, an unrefined farmer’s green tea, sold to wholesalers to finish processing and sell directly to consumers. They also produce small batches of loose leaf hojicha (roasted tea) and genmaicha (sencha blended with roasted rice).
All these teas, along with oolong, matcha, and even black tea, come from the same leaf—camellia sinensis. The difference is what happens in the time between harvesting and processing (a combination of steaming, roasting, and rolling). Though the leaf may be the same, tea can be wildly different depending on where it comes from. For Akito, sharing teas from different regions fosters social connection and appreciation for his home. He explains, “It makes me feel that tea from my region is special. I think in that way people around the world have the same mindset. It’s not like, this is good or bad. It’s just different, right?”
So, there are tons of brews out there. . . but what’s the best? Akito has a preference for cold-brewed sencha—it’s bright, citrusy, and refreshing: perfect for hot summer days. As an added bonus, cold brewing makes it lower in caffeine while boosting theanine, a stress-reducing compound.
As for drinking tea? Akito suggests nodate, a type of Japanese tea ceremony where tea is brewed outdoors, enjoyed in the peace of nature and conversation with good friends. Part tea ceremony, part picnic, it’s the laid-back cousin of the more formal ceremonies that Japan is famous for.
The Trouble with Loose Leaf
Unfortunately, the industry is not without its challenges. One of the biggest is the aging population of farmers. “The average age of tea farmers is 70 years old, and many of their children aren’t taking over the business,” Akito explains. It’s maybe the most pressing issue today, but it’s a symptom of bigger problems—the main one being profit.
“Tea was profitable back in the ‘70s or ‘80s, so a lot of farmers started making tea,” Akito says. In recent years, however, consumers have moved away from using teapots, preferring tea bags or bottled tea for convenience.
“For farmers, it’s challenging because tea bags or bottled teas don’t use premium tea, so tea prices have been dropping drastically. . . In the last 15 years, we lost 30% of loose leaf tea [production].” And, although there is a growing international demand for tea, many customers prefer organic, which is costly to produce and yields only half the amount of standard methods.
Still, there’s hope. Akito has noticed a recent trend of people enjoying tea like “wine or specialty coffee,” such as single origin or single estate tea, giving rise to upscale tea shops and tastings in Kyoto and Shizuoka. Globally, recent Western food trends have created a nearly insatiable demand for matcha worldwide, giving Japan’s tea industry a much-needed boost.
In fact, Akito’s tea farm will convert entirely to matcha production starting next year. Producing the leaves is time- and care- intensive, making this decision an investment that depends on the hope that the current matcha craze will continue.
Slowing Down in a Rapidly Changing World
Can loose leaf tea keep up in modern markets? Only time will tell. Akito admits, “People consider tea an outdated drink.”
Matcha, with its instagrammable appearance and bold flavor, is well-suited for today’s lightspeed consumer culture. Loose leaf brews have a much more subtle depth of flavor, on the other hand. These teas take a bit more time and patience, two things admittedly hard to come by in today’s attention economy. Yet, arguably, therein lies the charm of loose leaf—and a small but growing number of consumers agree. In time, markets like this could protect the traditions of farms like Akito’s, and, in turn, sustain the future of tea cultivation in Japan.
Author Bio:
Jackie Husted is a JET ALT based in Shizuoka. She loves cafes, birds, and going off on tangents just to see how far they can go.