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Interview with Tea Nursery, Pau · Specialty Matcha Podcast

0:00
All right, we're live. Hello and welcome to the
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Specialty Matcha podcast. My name is Ryan and this is my
0:05
Co host, Zhangjun. Hello, hello And we're the Co
0:07
founders of Sanko Matcha Products.
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Yeah. So we launched this podcast to
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discuss our learning journey, matcha, share startup stories
0:14
and interview experts. And today we're happy to have
0:17
Paul from Teen Nursery. So Paul and us met during our
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last sourcing trip in Japan and we learned so much about the tea
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industry in Japan and we kind of felt the need to invite you as a
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guest. And we definitely indulge a
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little bit when we were writing the questions that we want to
0:33
ask. So Paul, can you maybe share a
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little bit about your background and how you came to start tea
0:39
nursery? Yeah, of course.
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Yeah, that was that was quite, quite a long, quite a long list
0:43
of of questions that we will see where we can cover today.
0:46
Well, my name is Pao, I'm from Spain, from the Catalonia
0:50
region. So that's my background is in in
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coffee. I started when I was in
0:57
university as a barista kind of part time job.
1:01
And then you end up like lacking more the job than the studies in
1:05
a way. And I work in that company for
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seven years, mainly in the coffee side.
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Well, head trainer and like I ended up doing some quality
1:15
control for coffee and stuff like that as well.
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But they also operated a tea shop as well.
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In that tea shop, they had like quite a wide variety.
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So from like more like basic super blended dried fruit kind
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of infusions all the way up to pores and like crazy white teas
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and Yokudos. And so I was like exposed
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through there. I was like, OK, that sounds
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interesting. Sometimes for bring lunch breaks
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for people, I would just like help in the tea shop.
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That's where it comes from. The tea at the beginning, yeah,
1:48
years past and I wanted to just like switch to tea.
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So I always tried to study as much as possible about the
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topics that interest me. So I just really started digging
2:01
very, very deeply into tea and I did some online education
2:05
courses with some associations out there.
2:07
Then I visit Japan for a tea master course for two weeks last
2:12
year, June, June of last year, June, July, something like that.
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And then I had the opportunity to work for a year in a tea farm
2:19
in Japan. So I took that opportunity,
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which like really, really skyrocketed.
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Like all the knowledge I'm taking notes every day and like
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trying to leave the tea in a way.
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And now I work in a in a tea farm.
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So it's been a huge transition. And the tea nursery, which is
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the my block. That was two years ago, exactly
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like next month. I believe it was part of like
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this gathering of information for me to learn or like way just
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to share it with others as much as possible.
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I don't have the time to write too much, but I have like a lot
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of piled up content that hopefully will roll out
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eventually. But I specialize in very
3:00
technical details as we might talk about later.
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So it was just like wanting to. Share Your blog is incredible.
3:10
Thank you. Like, it's so technical
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sometimes It's like, OK, it's actually like, this is just too
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nerdy. Is it too much too technical?
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But people people seem to to enjoy it because it's highly
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specialized in things that either you need to learn a lot
3:25
of Japanese to be able to read it or just to spend a lot of
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time between translation tools and it's a little bit of a pain.
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So, yeah, but that's that's a little bit how it came to be, I
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guess. Thank.
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You for thank you for doing it. It really is an incredible
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service for anyone who wants to learn about cultivars or the
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regions or really the technical details behind how things were
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bred or invented. Like it's it's been my active
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reading list and I'm slowly chomping through all the
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articles back, reading everything and I'm learning so
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much that you just don't hear about in other pockets of the
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Internet, at least in the English speaking world.
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That's one of the reasons why I like started writing the, the
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blog post and putting them out there because like, I wanted to
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know about this thing, but OK, I have to read it in Japanese.
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And then it's like there is broad strokes here and there,
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but it's like that was not satisfactory for me.
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So I tend to just like go very deep into rabbit holes.
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So like I'm sure there is someone out there that would
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also enjoy that kind of content sometimes.
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So I'm glad, I'm glad to to hear that, that you like it.
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Yeah, well, as we are roaming through Japan, we realized that
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the language barrier is definitely a thing.
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Really gay kit. A lot of very valuable
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information. Yeah, some, sometimes it's, it's
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difficult like the language barrier.
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Sometimes of course, like you are like just coming out of
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nowhere. They don't know you, you don't
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know them. Like of course people are a
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little bit more like closed. Most, most farmers are very
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happy always to to talk about their farm, about the plants,
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nerd out a little bit of like my T field is the best one in the
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region, blah blah blah. So after you meet them for a few
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times, they usually open up and you can have very nice,
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interesting conversations with them.
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But it takes a little bit of time, sometimes a little bit
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more different if you are talking to more like the
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industry site or like more like to research centers.
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You ask questions. It's like, who are you?
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Like why, why, why are you requesting these very specific
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copy of a paper just to read it? It's like, but yeah.
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But in general, they they are, they are very nice.
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The pharmacy. It's like you also need to know
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like what you can ask at each stage of getting to know them,
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but that's like just goes like as a personal relationship with
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other people as well. Makes sense.
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Can you share a little bit about what it's like to work on a tea
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farm day-to-day? What is it like you do and how
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does it change with the seasons and how you interact with the
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people you work with? We we'd love to learn a little
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bit more about like, what does it actually look like to be a
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tea farmer full time? OK, so tea farming, according to
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other farmers in Japan that are not farming tea is one of the
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craziest things that you can do. Apparently.
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Like I was going to help an association next to Wazuka in in
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a city, well, a village called Tawara, it's in Nara Prefecture.
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And they were planting Kiwi trees.
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And they were like, oh, OK. Like are you here on vacation
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or? No, no, I work.
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I work in Wazuka. I work in tea.
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They were like, indeed, you're crazy.
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Like that's the most heavy farming that one can do.
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And I was like, oh really? And I think like later that
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year, I understood why. Especially in spring, it's like
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winter is very chill. Like there is not much to do on
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the fields. So wedding there is, I don't
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know, winds or tree fell down. You go and take care of it,
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repair shading structures, stuff like that.
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But then from March is trim the Bush, then people start to
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fertilize bushes. Then you start maybe shading or
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a little bit more of trimming. Then wedding prepare, preparing
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for harvest. Then when the harvest starts,
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it's just like all of those things happening simultaneously
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because you can be operating, I don't know, 1 field or 30
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different fields. So everyone has different
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behaviors, different rates of growth, different weather
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environment. Basically this year I think we
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started working from the 11th of March in the fields.
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Harvest was the 23rd of April. I remember it very well.
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And from there when I realized it was August already.
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So yeah, it was very busy. Wow.
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So wake up in the morning. That sounds intense.
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Go to the fields, have a lunch break, go to the fields, go to
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the factory, spend a lot of hours in the night processing
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tea, go to sleep, wake up, repeat.
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And that's your life for around two months for spring harvest.
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Then you get a couple days of relax or rest and then you start
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trimming again and fertilizing again and trimming and shaving
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for summer and preparing for summer and a lot of wedding.
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And now we are in September and now we are chilling a little
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bit, cleaning the factory, preparing for autumn harvest,
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which will be starting for us in maybe three weeks, 2 weeks more
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or less. And then rinse and repeat when
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you realize it's Christmas, and when you realize again it's
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March and turn the engines on again and let's go.
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It starts over. It's probably one of the hardest
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jobs I have done in my life. It's very rewarding, but it's
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physically exhausting. And then have factory duty for
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us. We do a lot of the tourism
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activities and education activities.
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So you have that on top of the high amounts of physical work,
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but it's it's very rewarding. See how the plants behave, how
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do they grow? When do they suffer a pest,
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diseases like at night is like, Oh my God, is that feeling going
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to be OK? Like a very deep personal
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connection with. That's cool.
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Must be so tangible to see it from, you know, beginning to
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end, yes, from like soil management from the wedding all
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the way through like tasting the tea.
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It's it's an experience so few people get to have and we
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haven't really had that either. So it's it's it's.
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Very rewarding when you spend, I don't know, a couple days in the
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heat of summer, just like harvesting.
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And then you go to a factory and you're like sweating like crazy
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because like 39° and all the machines are running like at
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90°C constantly for hours. And you are like, just like
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keeping yourself hydrated as much as possible.
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And then you are like, Oh my God, is the tea going to be OK?
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Is it too dry? Is it broken up?
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Is it too much dust? And then you try the next
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morning and it's like, OK, not that bad.
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Like a very rewarding kind of like, OK, the sweat and tears.
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But after all of that effort, the tea is it always that
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rewards you in a way, it's a very rewarding experience to the
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next morning try the tea that you have harvested maybe 20 to
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20 hours ago. It's it's a luxury.
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Honestly, it's like it's something that almost no one can
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like have such fresh tea because for match, of course, you need
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to like go tension over and grinding and aging and like all
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the all the steps for centers a little bit more direct.
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But it's such a unique experience.
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And then you can drink that tea every day of the year and every
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day you will, you will see how it evolves from kind of the
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cincha flavours. It will mature a little bit.
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It will, it will calm down. And then it it gets like a
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little bit of a different flavor at the end of the season.
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Truly, truly a luxury. I feel very honored to be able
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to to experience that. That's awesome tasting that
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transformation. So it goes.
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It moves from like very green notes, like cincha, and then I
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guess it settles into itself. And yeah, you said it really
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changes towards the end. Yeah, it it, how does it change?
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Mellows during the year in a way, like it can be very
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pungent, grassy cut grass, like very green, sharp in a way.
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And sometimes the body is a little bit more on the light
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side. That's I'm a terrible taster,
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but that's what I felt at the beginning.
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Then maybe after two weeks you kind of start to see like, oh,
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that charm. This is a little bit more like
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rounded out and about the two to three months mark is when it,
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it, the body starts to develop, it becomes a little bit more
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sweet. That noise of like freshness
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noise in a way goes out and it's a little bit more expressive, a
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little bit more like open. Sometimes you, you cup it in the
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morning and it's like, oh, it's like a little bit like, I don't
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know, maybe it's too grassy. We maybe we even do the
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processing right. And my boss on the head farmer
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are always like, no, no, no, to just just chill, like let it be
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for a couple of weeks and then we will really, we'll really
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know. It's it's too fresh right now to
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be able to evaluate it. And then after six months, I
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think is is the best time to drink the tea, to be honest, at
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least for. Me is it when you have different
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cultivars in the beginning when it's closer to Shincha and very
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fresh? Oh yeah.
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Do they taste more similar and then taste more distinct as they
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get older? Or is the difference immediately
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apparent or it grows? I think the general evolution is
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the same. Of course different cultivars
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taste different and some of them taste very, very different.
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If you compare, I don't know, something very early with
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Ocumidori, which is extremely late cultivar like of course
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they will taste very different because maybe there is like 3
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weeks, three weeks and a half of different timing wise.
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Because you can't even make the comparison.
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Exactly, exactly, exactly. I mean, you could, if you, I
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don't know, then you have to source from different
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prefectures. It's not like you can have it
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from the same village or something like that.
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Like when we harvest, I don't know when we harvest Yabukita in
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one field, the closest field that has a Commodore, maybe we
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harvested like at least two weeks later.
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I would say depends on the on the situation.
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Also, if you shade it or not and you have to wait for the shading
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to develop a little bit more, that also effects, it's very
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difficult to compare. That's, that's also something I
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want to focus more on this next year, like really knowing the
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cultivars by the taste of them and see like what are the
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commonalities among all the commodities?
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Because of course the, the farmer technique and the farmer
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field management will affect it so much.
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Like the processing will affect it so much.
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That is very difficult to say like, oh, this is of course is
14:43
Okuhikari because it has this very particular note.
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There is commonalities, but if you burn it in the shipping
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machine, then it will taste like a like a hojita and and that's
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not from the cultivar. That's just a mistake, which
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sometimes is a good thing. I have during my practice runs,
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I have like scorched some tea sometimes and there's like, oh,
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well, it gives it a nutty taste. It's not.
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It's not so bad. Like it's interesting.
15:09
Paul, can you maybe give our listener some background
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information about cultivars, like what are they developed in
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the 1st place and how do they being used right now in the
15:21
contemporary industry? So for cultivars, I think the
15:26
vocabulary can borrow industry by industry.
15:29
Like there is this huge debate of cultivars and varieties and
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varieties are like in at least in the coffee industry, I think
15:37
in the maybe you're so doing you know more about that is the
15:40
wine. There is also all these a
15:43
varietal kind of book. How old are you going on?
15:45
Different grapes. Yes.
15:47
So a cultivar is a plant variety that is like cultivated.
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So it's a cultivated variety, something that you select out of
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a wild population. And you say, wow, this plant
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looks super beautiful. It's super tall and let the
16:02
leaves look great. So you just like take that
16:06
plant, identify it and then you kind of some crops can propagate
16:11
through seeds and the characteristics will carry on
16:16
into the seeds. But most of the time that's not
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the case. So that's when you do grafting
16:21
or you the cuttings or whatever. What is a variety then?
16:25
So a variety is a botanical term and that's like soup species of
16:30
a plant. So they have characteristics
16:35
that differentiate them from the from in the in the main species,
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but they can still interpret between them.
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So that would be Camellia sinensis variety sinensis and
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Camellia sinensis variety Asamika.
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So both form part from the same family, the same species, but
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they have distinctive traits that we can say like, OK, this
17:02
is obviously two different soup species, but they can still
17:08
crossbreed among themselves because they are very similar
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still. And those distinct traits they
17:14
usually carry into the next generation of the plant and the
17:19
cultivar traits. So that beautiful glossy green
17:23
leaf, if you take seeds from the plant, those traits don't
17:28
crossover. So to maintain those favourable
17:33
things that you like, you need to propagate by cuttings.
17:37
So our varieties like a little bit more of a broad soup species
17:40
kind of selection cultivaries, this plant in specific, we like
17:46
the traits of this individual genetic material and you just
17:50
clone it. Like if you could do clones of
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like, oh, we really like that human, you will never get a copy
17:56
of the same 1. So you will have like to clone a
17:57
human, right? And then varietal, which is
18:00
something that we see like floating around.
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And this is a huge debate I have with a lot of people.
18:06
It's not a science botanical term.
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It's more of a like an industry term in a way.
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It's like super big in wine industry, coffee industry as
18:17
well. It's more like an agricultural
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term, like when you do a product that is a single variety, you
18:24
can call it ice, varietal, whatever, but it's not like a
18:28
technical defined botanical term in a way.
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And I'm not a botanist, I'm not a nautical tourist.
18:34
So take all of this with a spoon of salt.
18:39
But I hope that kind of clears a little bit the confusion that
18:43
might be around it. And then the second part of the
18:46
question. Very interesting.
18:48
I forgot what? What are they?
18:50
How they are made? Yeah, that's right.
18:52
Do so do like these cultivars made from, let's say, cross
18:59
breeding from some local tea Research Institute in Japan, or
19:03
do farmers also do their own crossing?
19:06
Like how? How do they generally gets made
19:09
and how do they get their names from?
19:12
OK. So that that's interesting.
19:14
Well, first of all, like 40 at least, like the first batch of
19:23
registered cultivals, I think it was 14 or 15 of them within
19:27
1953. But of course the research on
19:30
those started much, much early, like 18, sixties, 1870s.
19:37
So there was this guy Mutokiti, Tada Mutokiti that they, it was
19:42
a bustle from the shogunet and then the shogunet fell.
19:45
That's like a different story. But then it became a tea farmer
19:50
and the new government, the Meiji government sent him to
19:54
India and China to like, OK, the exports are growing.
19:58
We want to export tea because it's one of our crops and
20:01
resting how we can improve our tea exports by mixing some
20:07
better tea, better processing or better plant or whatever.
20:09
So this guy went out. Came back a couple years later
20:14
with seeds from other plants that were not introduced in
20:16
Japan. So that's genetic material
20:20
coming more from the Asamika family.
20:23
So in Japan we work a lot with the variety of the CNNCCS, not
20:27
the CNNCS Asamika. So most of the Asamika
20:30
introduced places where firstly introduced by the Moto Kichi.
20:34
That's why Taiwan has Asamika too because it was under
20:38
Japanese rule at the time. I think because they're in Sun
20:41
Moon lake is a lot of Assamika but I heard it was brought in by
20:44
the Japanese but maybe it's the same time period to.
20:48
Be I'm not sure. Also there is this situation
20:52
where I mean proximity wise is probably Taiwan is quite much
20:56
way more closer to Assam and parts of China where they grow
21:02
Assamika. So it could have naturally
21:04
happened by trade as well from another source like monks at the
21:09
time. Like that's how tea was
21:11
introduced in Japan for the Talamoto Kitsi heirloom seed
21:16
introduced. It came off like, OK, we want to
21:18
go outside to see how we can better our tea.
21:21
The difference with Taiwan and Japan, if when Taiwan was under
21:26
the rule of the Japanese, it's like if both countries produce
21:31
the same type of tea, then they are like, it's like a conflict
21:33
of interest a little bit. They are cannibalizing
21:36
themselves. So I think that's why they let
21:40
those Asamika varieties specialize more onto the
21:43
alongside and Japan tend to specialize their breathing more
21:48
into the black and green. So they would not like conflict
21:53
within each other. I might be wrong but it's a
21:56
possible explanation. I have seen it mentioned
21:59
somewhere that I don't remember but definitely not something set
22:04
in stone I think. So from those seeds they will
22:07
take some seed, they will grow it, they will make seedlings and
22:10
then they will say like OK these tree the leaves are too small.
22:13
This tea the leaves are too big. This one just died because of
22:17
cold weather and eventually they set it on like, OK, we have
22:20
enough leaf amount from the ones that survived that make sample
22:24
tea. Then you say like, oh, the tea
22:27
from this one in particular is amazing.
22:29
So you select from a wild population.
22:31
You don't know what you're getting.
22:33
Once you try it, it's like, OK, we want this profile.
22:37
And then you start propagating, get more trees so you can make
22:40
more tea so you can propagate even more and like reproduce the
22:44
plant until you can make fields and fields of it.
22:46
So that's like very old kind of style of cross breathing or like
22:51
the first generations, like there was no method.
22:55
They were like figuring everything out.
22:56
I guess actually that's the material from thirties, 1940s.
23:02
That's when Benny Homare started.
23:05
So they was singled out. Or like this plant has potential
23:08
to become a black T cultivar and that was the the one that would
23:13
become cultivar number one in Japan, not as in quality, but
23:17
like registered as T cultivar 01.
23:23
And that was the when Yabukita was registered the same year,
23:27
Assetsuyu was registered the same year.
23:30
So that's more like first generation cultivar
23:33
registration. So they will take Zyri trees,
23:37
which is trees grown mainly from seed or like existing tea
23:43
gardens. They will just like go and scout
23:46
all the plants and select the plants that showed desirable
23:50
threat. Then when you move, it takes
23:55
maybe 20 years, 30 years to make all this study because most of
24:01
the time you are waiting for the plant to grow enough to
24:03
propagate it as well. Then maybe that was on the 50s
24:08
or maybe 60s and 70s, you start to see registered cultivars that
24:12
come from zai. So the same situation, but you
24:17
start to see a lot of like, OK, we know that Yabukita is good,
24:21
let's pollinize plants with pollen from Yabukita or let's
24:25
pollinize from other flowers on a zai field into Yabukita
24:30
flowers. And genetic lottery will give
24:32
us, I don't know, 7000 seeds. From those 7000 seeds, we will
24:37
grow them, see what happens. And maybe we end up with two
24:42
cultivars at the end of the process that we like.
24:46
So that's more like second generation cultivar that would
24:49
be maybe from the 60s and 70s. So you kick area, No.
24:54
So you thought it was quite, quite recent kind of thing of a
24:57
cultivar from that period of time right now?
25:00
Who is paying for this? What was this wasn't tea farmers
25:04
right? Because this sounds like an
25:05
incredible amount. It was a.
25:06
Combination at the time it. Was the government?
25:10
It was mainly government because the government was opening to
25:15
the exterior like after the sakoku, right?
25:17
Like the Japan was a closed country.
25:20
The show when it fell, then the major reformation happened.
25:24
So they were buried into like, OK, let's put money into this.
25:27
Let's try to develop in that period of time black, black tea
25:32
Japanese industry. So they invested a lot of money
25:36
on like bringing people like Taramoto Kitsi outside, bring
25:39
seeds and building tea schools to make black tea education for
25:45
farmers. But the breeding itself on that
25:48
period of time, they how to say this in English.
25:52
They didn't have the notion of like if I have a plant that is
25:56
called Yabukita and I make seeds out of it, the seeds will be
26:01
different. But if I propagate I will keep
26:04
the genetic material. In a way they saw everything as
26:08
a tea plant, not as this plant is genetically different from
26:12
this other plant, if that makes sense.
26:14
OK. So every.
26:16
Plant. Was a tea plant there was no
26:18
like oh this one is more like a samica or this plant is more
26:22
like these traits. They will just like crossbreed,
26:25
get more seeds, plant them back on the field, genetic lottery.
26:28
And that's how they did things. And it was more Talamoto Kitsi
26:35
and one of his students, which was Sugiyama Hikosaburo.
26:40
I think it's the correct way of saying it.
26:42
That's basically the guy that discovered or selected or bred
26:48
Yabukita. So this guy was the first one
26:50
that say like no, OK, let's take individual plans.
26:53
If you do seeds from those plants, the characteristics are
26:57
not copied from one plant to the other.
26:59
So we need to have the original plant take cuttings and then
27:04
reproduce the plants by cuttings.
27:06
So he was the one that was like, Oh yeah, that crazy guy that is
27:10
propagating plants because he says that the genetic material
27:13
carries over kind of situation. And he was right.
27:19
So that's why at the beginning, all this cross breeding is a
27:22
little bit more like selecting out of a wild population because
27:26
they're, they, they still didn't develop the method to study
27:31
cross breeding like like now, like the cultivar you see now,
27:35
they are very intentional of like we have some Idari, we know
27:38
which are the weaknesses. So we are going to breathe it
27:41
with these other cultivar that we know it's resistant to this
27:46
thing that time Idari is not and try to get rid of the weakness.
27:49
There was not that notion that many years ago, if that makes
27:53
sense, that. Makes sense do.
27:55
People still make new cultivars nowadays.
27:59
Yes, yes. I think actually in January last
28:04
year, the Shizuka National was the national one.
28:08
No, it was a perfectional Research Center.
28:11
They released 2 new 2 new cultivars.
28:14
I don't remember the names even though I was there and I could I
28:18
was very lucky that I could taste them.
28:20
It was Suyahi. Was it cool?
28:24
I don't remember the name. I know I brought an article
28:28
about it. I can, I can, I can find the
28:30
names later. But it was basically 2 new
28:32
cultivars. And sometimes you can just check
28:35
on the registry of cultivars and it's like, Oh yeah, these
28:40
farmer, which is a farmer from Kagoshima has registered the
28:44
cultivar. And it's like, OK, well, there's
28:46
a new one now. But you could as an individual,
28:49
you could just like go into a zai field and say like this
28:54
plant, this plant is good. Register it and it's.
28:58
A new cultivar. Exactly.
28:59
They will test it and stuff like that and you need to provide
29:02
some documentation. But that's basically what they
29:05
are doing, right? And there is still some farmers
29:08
that they grow their own cultivars.
29:10
It doesn't need to come from the government.
29:12
Like I think you guys have talked about the Narino Narino
29:16
cultivar before. So.
29:18
That comes from a zai plant. From Nori.
29:21
Hori shishimi yen or something like that.
29:26
Yeah, yeah. He has two cultivars, the
29:30
Narino, the Okunoyama, and they were registered 2000, yeah, 2000
29:40
I think. And both of them are basically
29:42
Zyride. And apparently they just kept
29:44
track of those plans individually.
29:47
Then they went to the research centre and they were like, hey,
29:50
we have those two plans, this is the study that we did and we run
29:53
tests with you. And then they applied for
29:56
registration and they got accepted.
29:59
But on those cases usually is not a cultivar that will be sold
30:05
to other farmers because it's like in the case of the Narino,
30:10
it's like double the amino acid content of Yabokita, for
30:15
example. So it makes sense for you to
30:17
keep that plant because it's like a a good tool that you can
30:21
use for your products. There is another farmer in
30:24
Tanegashima, which is an island South of Kawashima.
30:27
Is it Tanigashima or the other island?
30:29
I don't remember. He has the soju soju cultivar
30:34
thing it's called and it's an extremely early cultivar.
30:37
So that guy basically is the first farmer that gets to market
30:42
every year because the tea that flashes 2 weeks before anyone
30:47
else on top of that. On top of that, he lives us
30:50
South of Japan as you can get. So the warm weather also like
30:55
helps. So I think he might like be
30:58
harvesting like end of February, beginning of March, something
31:03
like that, which is crazy. Wow.
31:06
Super. Early because in Kyoto we
31:08
harvest end of April if it's early and the first week of May
31:13
usually. So that's like 3 months before
31:17
anyone else basically almost. So it makes sense for him to
31:21
keep that genetical intellectual property for himself for a while
31:28
at least. Can you talk about the
31:30
registration system in general? And I guess people license out
31:34
cultivars, but the purpose of the registry is to protect your
31:40
IP right? And that's why some cultivars
31:43
just aren't registered, cuz I guess maybe there's no need to,
31:47
they don't care about protecting it.
31:48
Or maybe it's too too much of a headache.
31:51
Yeah, I guess so that's, that's something I'm I'm really
31:54
beginning to right now. I found these 90 page manual on
31:59
how to apply for a registration and it's it's a very thick, very
32:05
thick writ, but basically what they are trying to to see.
32:08
And it depends crop by crop, of course.
32:12
But it's like, OK, are those genetic traits when you
32:16
propagate by cuttings, are they stable?
32:18
Like if they are lost, they are not going to register it.
32:20
They're not going to accept it as a cultivar.
32:23
If you do all the paperwork and the tests are good and you have
32:26
not commercialized those plans to another country or you are
32:33
not selling those plans before registration, they can just like
32:37
put a stamp. They will give it a registration
32:40
number, which is the most boring thing that you can see.
32:43
It's like cultivar 06132. And at the same time, usually
32:50
they give it a name to make it a little bit more easy to identify
32:53
as well. So that's where I said to you
32:57
and to Hikaru and all those names came from.
33:01
And then you have anywhere between 20 to 30 years, I think
33:07
it is where you have the rights to that plant genetic identity,
33:13
basically. So if a company that is not
33:17
necessarily making tea, they are just making the propagation
33:20
step. So creating baby tea plants, you
33:22
can license them to like, OK, yeah, you can.
33:25
You can propagate this plant for me and sell it basically.
33:29
Or you can just choose like, no, this plant can only be sold into
33:34
inside this prefecture, or this plant can only be sold to people
33:39
I decide to license because it's it's your work, right?
33:43
It's like any other intellectual property.
33:47
That's how it kind of works, right?
33:49
So it's the same basically with. Plants makes sense.
33:51
You are telling them like, oh, yeah, this plant can be grown
33:54
anywhere in the country, but you cannot export the plant to
33:59
outside of Japan. Some plants, they might say,
34:02
like, yeah, this cultivar, you can export it worldwide, no
34:07
restrictions. Some cultivars, like Suhikari,
34:11
for example, is very famous because it's an excellent
34:14
cultivar, is one of my favorite cultivars.
34:17
It was bred by the Prefectural Shizuoka Tea Research Center,
34:22
and they were like, yeah, you can plant these in the entirety
34:24
of Japan. Then something happened, I think
34:28
it was 2008, and they decided they're like, no, from now on
34:33
until we, we don't have the right to the breathing right
34:37
anymore. That cultivar can only be grown
34:39
in Shizuoka because they can use it as a competitive edge against
34:44
maybe other prefectures or they want to boost production in
34:47
their prefecture before it gets released outside.
34:50
And I think that's because it's a good relationship to what you
34:54
guys do with Matam Tenta. I think too, he carries a
34:59
excellent, excellent tea cultivar for Santa and caboose
35:02
and all these beautiful things. But I think that they might have
35:06
discovered that it actually makes excellent, excellent
35:09
matter as well. So they are like, Nope, Nope.
35:13
We are going to keep it for ourselves more.
35:15
Valuable. It's a very difficult, it's a
35:18
very difficult cultivar to propagate because it doesn't
35:21
root very well at the beginning. There is a lot of plants dying
35:27
out on the nursery stage so I think they are trying to keep
35:31
all the production as much as possible inside of the
35:33
prefecture and I think I believe they are losing the rights or
35:38
they they expire 2028. So right now the only way to get
35:44
Zuhikari plants is being in Shizuka, or people that planted
35:51
fields of Zuhikari many years ago.
35:54
They can of course keep the plants, you can.
35:57
They just cannot propagate them. That will be like a illegal act.
36:01
Interesting. But you can see to Hikaru in
36:04
Nagasaki or in Wazuka, we have a couple of farmers that have it.
36:09
So they are allowed to keep using those plants, of course,
36:13
but what they cannot do is propagate the plant.
36:16
Interesting, can the tea leaves harvested from other prefecture
36:20
being you know trade to another prefecture and gets processed?
36:26
Leaves, leaves, yes, let's as probably as a Raza, so as
36:31
already like rough tea, maybe as fresh probably as well.
36:37
But why? Why would you transport fresh
36:39
leaves? It would it would probably be a
36:42
headache. What you cannot trade is is the
36:45
the seeds in the case of two Hikaru, for example, Sorry, not
36:49
seeds, cuttings, cuttings, but leaf yeah, shouldn't shouldn't
36:54
be a problem. I think that's that's how
36:56
Kagoshima was selling a lot of tea to Shizuoka many years ago
37:03
until they decided to just like go on their own.
37:07
And it's going very well for them.
37:08
There is a lot of like well or they used to be a lot of trade
37:12
between prefectures like leaf wise if they didn't have an
37:15
auction of their own or something like that.
37:19
At dinner you were telling us that.
37:20
But to really understand the different growing regions of tea
37:23
and the different terroirs of tea in Japan, it's really a
37:26
story of cultivars. Is this IP system like one part
37:31
of that story? But are are there other parts to
37:33
that story as well? Well.
37:35
It's connected like the two Hikaru case for example, right?
37:39
Like it was spread in Shizuoka. So of course, natural selection
37:44
of the environment will kind of like filter out plants that
37:48
don't do well in that environment.
37:50
Does that make sense? But then that's Hikaru, for
37:53
example, they have a very strong partnership with Omaizaki City
37:58
and that's basically farming wise is to Hikaru City.
38:04
It was a variety extremely promoted into into the farmers
38:09
of that city as a project to kind of give a boost to the
38:13
ageing farming economy at that time.
38:17
So it can be like the influence through there.
38:20
It can be sometime just the identity of the of the
38:26
prefecture. So most of the Saitama
38:29
cultivars, so Sai something something naturally because they
38:33
are bred there, they are extremely resistant to frost
38:37
because it's a very cold OK. So that gives their their
38:41
identity. They might not be the most
38:43
quotes on quotes like tasty ones, but they are usually like
38:48
super Hardy plants. If you go to Kawashima, it's a
38:52
very hot environment. Plants don't suffer that much
38:55
from frost, but they have all these like very early growing
38:59
cultivars because the environment of the region kind
39:03
of has more hot environment. It promotes early growth of the
39:07
plant. So geography wise, the plants
39:11
will behave slightly different. But also sometimes you have
39:14
interesting cases like Yutakamidori is the second most
39:18
grown cultivar in Japan. He's originally from Shizuoka
39:24
and it never got registered because it's kind of like
39:28
following the processing methods of the time.
39:32
It was kind of bitter and like very rough.
39:35
Some researcher decided to just bring it down to Kagoshima.
39:39
He didn't made a good impression at the beginning, but until they
39:44
figure out how to really processing it and now it's
39:49
basically all the Utakamidor is grown down there.
39:52
So it's a plan that maybe doesn't do well in one place.
39:56
It gets moved to another prefecture.
39:58
Sometimes you have to change your mentality around that plant
40:01
and then it makes super well. Some of them are just like the
40:04
Narino, like farmers that are very passionate about breeding
40:10
plants just for fun and they buy genetic lottery.
40:13
They get something like super spectacular and that gets
40:17
recognised as an excellent cultivar.
40:19
Like thing is Asahi or one of the kyokens as well.
40:25
It was like a farmer that just had it.
40:27
Growed it, donated it to the Research Center and the Research
40:30
Center were like, Oh, OK, this is actually like excellent
40:32
healthy, but let's let's let's promote it inside of the
40:35
prefecture. So sometimes it's also the
40:38
effort of an individual farmer can like kind of affect the
40:43
entire farming in in inside of a prefecture.
40:46
Wow this is fascinating. This world is so deep at.
40:50
The end of the day, like there is humans selecting plants and
40:54
those humans also have histories and the research centres have
40:59
histories of their own and things that they look for and
41:02
things they don't look for. So every research centre also
41:05
has its own personality and the plants that get out of there
41:09
also have different traits. So that's what I meant by the
41:14
geographies very interconnected between the plants and the
41:18
farmers and the industry, because I don't know, the plant
41:24
affects the industry, the industry affects the farmer, but
41:27
the farmer can make like a new plant that can affect the
41:29
industry. And it's like this loop.
41:32
So it's kind of interesting. Very cool.
41:35
We're learning a lot. How, how do you acquire all
41:40
these information in general? Like, do you read a lot of
41:43
papers or do you just, you know, talk to farmers and they would
41:47
tell you all these things? Yes, it's a combination of many
41:52
things. So there is the for the register
41:57
cultivars, it's a little bit more easy because it's a public
42:00
registry. You just go to the database of
42:03
the government, look for Camellia Sinensis, sinensis,
42:09
whatever. I will just like BLOB, a very,
42:12
very ugly Excel sheet that you have to also learn how to
42:16
decipher. But there you can see name what
42:20
it was bred by who, at what year, registration number,
42:25
expiration date of the rights. For the unregistered ones.
42:29
Usually you have to ask more questions.
42:31
Sometimes you can just search for in Google name of the
42:36
cultivar center. Like I don't know Uchihikari, I
42:41
don't know it's an unregistered one, right?
42:43
Uchihikari Matcha Kyoto and find a farmer that is selling it and
42:49
just send them an e-mail, call them like hey, so I'm wondering
42:55
about this cultivar and they are like, who are you?
42:57
Can I come visit your farm one day and blah blah, blah, blah
43:00
and then just ask questions and kind of like pull the string
43:06
from there. Sometimes you can just like
43:09
shoot an e-mail to the Research Center that developed the
43:12
cultivar and they can give you some pointers.
43:16
There is a beautiful article book as well.
43:20
It's only in Japanese and it's not something that you can buy
43:25
outside of Japan, unfortunately. I don't know why, but it has
43:30
maybe like, I don't know, 60-70 of them.
43:36
I would say maybe more. It's very basic information, but
43:39
it's full of photos and like who've read it and that's also a
43:43
very important tool for me using this book.
43:46
But if you go to if you go to my website, I have a link.
43:51
It's a Japanese T cultivar list I think.
43:54
And I have listed every single governmental website I use to
44:00
research the cultivars. Any of those websites you
44:02
probably can put a name and it will give you some sort of
44:06
information. Very cool, very cool, very
44:10
interesting. Sounds like a lot to sort
44:12
through too. It's taken many, many hours and
44:16
many, many hitting, hitting the wall with the head of like I
44:20
say, everything in Japanese and so like rudimentary sometimes.
44:25
But now I think there is these two, three more scientific
44:31
oriented websites run by Japanese government or
44:36
scientific associations that are, are very, are very useful.
44:39
So you just need to know where to look for answers, I guess.
44:43
And then enough Japanese to be able to kind of parse the
44:47
information a little bit. But yeah, I wish, I wish there
44:50
was like more sources in English as well.
44:53
There is, there is 2 very good ones like Ricardo.
44:56
I, I think you guys interviewed him.
44:58
His website is amazing in English.
45:00
Yeah, and also there is Florian as well.
45:04
It has like a very big list of Japanese cultivars out there in
45:07
English as well. But it's it's like, where do we
45:10
get that information? It's like a lot of like Google
45:13
typing in Japanese and shooting in the dark and translating Got.
45:20
It thank you for doing all of this.
45:22
Yes, thank you. There's so many interesting
45:25
stories when it comes to cultivars.
45:28
Some of the cultivars that have such deep personal history
45:32
sometimes, but it was so surprising.
45:34
It could be really cool to start moving some of these stories to
45:38
be more consumer facing because like you can tell the story of a
45:42
farmer or a region, but also telling the story of a cultivar
45:46
that they're drinking and how it came to exist is just such a
45:50
cool thing that adds dimensionality to matcha for
45:55
Japanese tea in general as a specialty product.
45:58
Well, I'd love if we could bring more of these stories closer to
46:01
the consumer. Yeah, I think so, because also
46:04
like apart from the culture, I like putting putting that on the
46:07
side. Like as MA, you can call it a
46:10
specialty product, you can call it like luxury product, like
46:13
whatever is the vocabulary that that industry uses.
46:16
At the end of the day, there is a farmer behind it just
46:19
showcasing their histories. Sometimes, especially in Japan,
46:23
it's like, I don't know, 16 generation farmer is like that.
46:27
That is crazy. Like how do you surface that?
46:31
It gives like an A lot of like background information of like,
46:36
OK, this might be not the most crazy expensive tea or crazy
46:40
cheap tea that you will ever have, but you feel a connection
46:44
with the farmer and that that can make an impact in their in
46:49
their family at the end of the day.
46:51
And I think that's the most important with specialty
46:54
products at the end of the day is like recognizing the product
46:58
as a specialty, but the work of that farmer to make that product
47:03
a specialty. And I think that sometimes gets
47:06
a little bit like lost when it comes to Europe or America or?
47:11
Whatever. Yeah, no, Absolutely
47:14
understanding all the people behind the product and the story
47:18
of how it basically came to exist.
47:20
So before we wrap up, what would you consider to be one of the
47:24
more under appreciated cultivars when it comes to tensha
47:28
cultivation and and for Matcha Wow that people maybe may or may
47:33
not have heard of? For tensha is is too specific to
47:37
single it out, but I think Ma Aichi is a sleeping giant.
47:44
They produce a lot of tensha like more like bulk industrial
47:47
production. They are very held back by some,
47:52
I don't know, industry situation down there.
47:54
I don't know why. And Karoshima, I think it has
47:57
exploded so much into into the matcha world as well.
48:01
They have put out a cultivar in the fourteen 2016.
48:08
It's called same. So I think it's let me check my
48:12
notes 2016, so 2016 put it four years for planting that will be
48:23
2020 and then another 3-4 years for the farmers to figure out.
48:29
It will come up more soon, I think.
48:33
And I think it it could be like what will do a flip for the
48:38
Kagoshima industry in the sense of tension.
48:42
I think so we we see it Kagoshima as a more like an
48:45
industrial site, but they are using the tools that they have
48:50
at their disposal, right. So I think these new say May
48:55
will appear anytime from now on and it could really make an
49:00
impact if it's inside of Kyoto Prefecture, which is what I know
49:05
a little bit more. Of course, we know about Goko
49:08
and Asahi and all these more famous one.
49:10
But I think Temio Temio is a cultivar that is not super known
49:16
out there. I don't know if it's even
49:17
registered. I think it might be one of the
49:20
few ones that they registered is extremely tasty.
49:23
It was recommended to me by a by a friend and he's extremely
49:27
Milky and creamy and like like Goko has like this kind of like
49:33
texture experience to it that I, I think almost no, no one grows
49:40
it yet because from 2000, something that that really blow
49:46
my my mind. Then I didn't know blow my mind,
49:48
but then tell me you blow it in another, in another sense, like
49:52
the textural experience, the creaminess, the softness, the
49:56
sweetness with like like a very, very nice velvety cultivar.
50:02
I wish, I wish there were more people and I think inside of
50:06
Kyoto, I've only found so far 2 farmers that have it.
50:10
So I hope, I hope it, I hope it spreads a little bit, a little
50:16
bit more. I don't think I've ever tried
50:18
that, Ryan, have you? Yeah, me neither.
50:20
I didn't know it existed until that friend was like, have you
50:23
ever heard of Temia? Or let me take in my notes,
50:26
like, oh, yeah, there is something called Temia, but I
50:28
have never tried it. I was like, OK, go to this guy,
50:32
ask him for Temia and then you call me and you tell me what?
50:36
What did you, what did you feel? I was like, OK, yes, it was.
50:40
It was, it was. But maybe it's also like amazing
50:45
as a single cultivar product out there too much.
50:48
Maybe it's in blends or whatever.
50:50
I'd love to see it as a single cult of our product.
50:53
Sounds really good. Yeah.
50:55
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your
50:57
time and for all the work you're doing in tea nursery.
50:59
It's really a gift to the tea world.
51:01
Well, thank you, guys. Thank you for the opportunity.
51:04
It's it's always nice to just like narrow out about plants
51:08
with someone else. I don't get I don't get the
51:11
opportunity too much. So it's it's awesome.
51:15
Thank you so much, guys. Thank.
51:16
You so much and for anyone listening, if you enjoyed this
51:19
podcast, please check out Tea Nursery, the website.
51:23
It's a wonderful resource to learn more about cultivars and
51:27
the history and even the different growing regions around
51:29
Japan. A lot of great resource links
51:31
there too. And if you enjoyed this podcast
51:34
in general, please consider sharing it with a friend or
51:36
giving us five stars and we'll see you on the next one.
51:40
Thanks. In the future.
51:41
Bye.