Latest / Specialty Matcha Podcast / Notes at Origin: Hand-picking Honzu Shaded Asahi Cultivar in Uji

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Notes at Origin: Hand-picking Honzu Shaded Asahi Cultivar in Uji · Specialty Matcha Podcast

0:00
Hello and welcome to the Specialty Match podcast.
0:02
My name is Ryan, this is my Cohosunjun who also goes by Sam.
0:05
Hello, hello. And we're the Co founders of
0:08
Sanka Matcha. Products we launched this
0:10
podcast to discuss our learning journey, matcha share startup
0:13
stories and interview experts right now we are sitting right
0:17
next to this 100 year old camphor tree looking directly
0:21
into this beautiful riverbank of Wichita and as we just finished
0:27
our first take to me in underneath a home so shaded tea
0:31
garden. It's something magical about
0:34
this moment. We.
0:35
Wanted to record our initial raw impressions.
0:37
So we're actually doing this from my phone.
0:39
So if the audio is not perfect, apologies in advance.
0:42
But we had the wonderful experience.
0:45
We're very grateful to have gotten to do handpicking to zoom
0:49
me of Asahi cultivar trees that have been Hansu shaded here in
0:53
Uji. We're not allowed to disclose
0:55
who it was, so we're not going to give any revealing
0:58
identifiable detail, but we wanted to document and describe
1:03
the experience of like, what is it like?
1:05
What is Tizumi like? So Zhengjun, what were some of
1:08
your first impressions? If someone asks you like, hey,
1:11
what's it like to handpick tea for?
1:13
For tensha to be turned into matcha.
1:15
I think the first thing that I notice is the smell underneath
1:20
this. Really floral smell coming out
1:23
from the tea trees. There was something wonderful
1:25
and the temperature difference as we enter underneath Hangzhou.
1:29
It was pretty sunny and hot day today in Uji, but it was
1:34
actually very cool and almost a little bit cold underneath
1:38
Hangzhou. Yeah, And we had the experience
1:41
today of being underneath Kalisha or sort of the black
1:46
quote UN quote synthetic shading clothes, but still on a raised
1:49
Tana so you could walk underneath them.
1:51
And as you know, we were walking around Uji afterwards.
1:54
You, if you really look closely, you can see the heat radiating
1:58
up from these black Tana, from these black clothes, these black
2:04
coverings. So the temperature difference
2:09
was enormous between the Honzu and Kali.
2:12
So it's much more comfortable. And actually when you're hand
2:15
picking, you got to get pretty close to the ground.
2:17
So sometimes you basically have to completely squat to have
2:21
access to some of the branches and close to the earth.
2:26
I would say it was almost like chilly.
2:30
I had a couple moments where there was a little breeze pass
2:32
through. It felt like I was walking into
2:35
like a cellar, like when you walk into a really old house
2:38
that goes deep underground or into a cave, very similar humid
2:44
kind of, you know, 50°F type breeze and, and feeling which
2:50
was which was really interesting and the last thing I would
2:52
expect because it's actually quite a hot day here.
2:56
Yeah, totally agree. And so picking the tea itself is
3:00
very different than of course picking Chinese tea and also
3:04
very different from picking Sancha.
3:05
So I almost need to unlearned my previous experience picking
3:10
other teas to pick, you know this Hong SU shaded Asahi which
3:13
is going to be made for Tancha. So the trick is to feel the
3:18
tenderness of all of the new grown branches and you snap the
3:24
entire branch. You don't pick like individual
3:26
butt or you don't pick individual leaves or you don't
3:29
pick the, you know, one butt and two leaf or one leaf kind of
3:33
composition. You snapped in the higher branch
3:36
off and you know part of the stem is going to later be turned
3:40
into a hojita and the leaves itself is going to be turned
3:44
into ten child themselves. So that was very interesting and
3:48
and we also learned that, you know, it's not the toughest
3:52
leaves that are the best. It's actually the leaves that
3:55
are underneath the bushes. They kind of get covered further
3:59
by the, you know, leaves on the Bush so that they receive even
4:03
less sunlight. But that tastes the best, the
4:05
most umami. And some of them, I guess,
4:08
receive so little sunlight that they might have a little
4:11
discolored. They actually look pale than
4:12
white. Yeah, some of them were were
4:15
very white, very pale, almost yellow and these young tender
4:19
buds that were underneath and you know, it's interesting.
4:21
So you know, before the harvest probably about a month ago now
4:26
and whenever you're doing 10 shot production, you remove move
4:28
the apex bud or the bud that's on the very, very top.
4:32
And what happens is when you the apex bud releases a hormone that
4:36
goes all the way down that particular branch and sub
4:40
branches that is suppressing the growth of what we call secondary
4:44
narrow stem. Just like we have stem cells in
4:48
our bodies that are undifferentiated tissue.
4:50
It can basically replace any or most of the different type of
4:55
cells in your body. And the biologist thought it
4:57
would be confusing to call these stem cells, stem cells and
5:01
plants, at least that's what my biology teacher has told me.
5:04
They call them Marist stem cells and they're undifferentiated
5:08
tissue. So basically can turn into any
5:09
part of a plant and they're basically the lack of that
5:13
hormone that's suppressing its growth as a signal to grow.
5:16
So you have all these mature leaves and a little bit bud,
5:19
little baby bud that's being hugged right in between the
5:22
junction between the mature leaf and the stem and it starts to
5:26
grow. So what you actually do when
5:28
you're harvesting, you pull the branch towards you and you start
5:33
at the base and many, many, many leaves down, nestled down there
5:38
are these buds and sometimes they grow, then they grow into
5:41
to tender young leaves. And that is what you pick.
5:46
And sometimes they have the chance to grow themselves into
5:50
having many leaves now, or sometimes it's just a a much
5:53
smaller leaf. That's what Zhongjin was talking
5:56
about. When you remove the entire
5:58
branch, it's just this new tender part which sometimes can
6:01
grow quite large. So from when you pull one single
6:04
branch of the plant towards you, you might be able to pick your
6:08
actual plucking motion might be anywhere from 10 to 15 plucks
6:12
working your way all the way up. And it's even and more difficult
6:16
when the main, the main branch that you pull has sub branches,
6:20
because then it's like trying to, if you think like a big
6:23
Christmas tree, you have all these branches and sub branches
6:26
and trying to remove very specific parts of each.
6:29
You kind of have to work in an organized way.
6:31
So that was kind of a hamper to efficiency.
6:34
But no, it was really cool. And as you're doing so, your
6:37
body needs to lean all the way over towards the T bushes.
6:41
It's a killer to my back and my waist, my lower body.
6:46
It was none after standing there in 3 for three hours, it was
6:49
quite painful. And if you look around, it was
6:53
all of these 6070 year old grand grand grannies and grandpas are
6:58
picking tea around you and they were a lot faster than me.
7:02
So that was almost a little discouraging and.
7:05
I think the oldest person there picking tea was like 85 years
7:09
old. Yeah, so.
7:11
And we were only there for three hours for about 25% of today's,
7:17
actually. It's quite daunting.
7:18
You look across these entire fields that are all going to be
7:20
Tazumi and you think to yourself, Oh my word, wow.
7:24
Just the amount of work that goes into hand picking tea.
7:29
My back hurts too. And we were only doing it for
7:31
three hours. And it it's it's uncomfortable
7:36
work. I'm sure there's worse work.
7:38
We've been knowledge workers are all our whole careers.
7:41
So like doing this type of manual work is very new to us.
7:44
But you know, I am so much more grateful for all of the tea
7:49
pickers and I have actually changed my position on Hanzu
7:55
shaded or non Hanzu shaded Tazumi matcha.
7:59
I I'm no longer ever going to mix anything with Kazumi tea or
8:06
let anyone else around me. No lattes, no mixed drinks.
8:10
I don't care if like it's like Noma or 11 Madison Park or like
8:15
La Bernadine chef making something like the amount of
8:19
backbreaking work of actual human pain it takes to harvest
8:24
this type of tea is, you know, I think it's painful.
8:27
It's painful and it's just the harvesting part, you know, like
8:31
honzu and all of these shading works goes for days and months.
8:36
And these, you know, structures are hard to fix.
8:40
For anyone to be able to create a home zoo structure, someone
8:43
needs to actually physically stands on top of the tunnel and
8:46
be able to sense where where does the skeleton of the tunnel
8:50
is so that they can step their foot on top of it to spread the
8:54
rice straws. And so it's actually very
8:55
dangerous work. We've learned tea farmers in
8:58
Wuji who had their relatives doing so and end up breaking
9:02
their ribs because they fell down from the tunnel.
9:06
So it's there are a lot of very challenging difficulties and
9:10
efforts went into all of these productions of Hongzhou shaded
9:13
some matter. Yeah, and some real human
9:16
sacrifices. It's pretty interesting.
9:18
There's a pretty strong case actually, especially as farmers
9:21
age, that Hongzhou is arguably the sustainability of this
9:26
method just from a danger and workplace hazard perspective is
9:33
quite high. And we were doing some
9:36
independent exploration of our own a couple days ago here in
9:39
Uji, walking around the Shirakawa region.
9:42
And our goal was to see like, get a real impression of the
9:47
number of hanzu shaded plants there.
9:51
And I'm pretty sure we saw like 70 or 80% of what's in
9:55
Shirakawa, at least that's what we could tell from the satellite
9:58
pictures. And we were literally just
10:00
walking on the highway for hours, like half the day and
10:04
looking at all of the structures and all the action going on.
10:09
And I think we saw three, maybe 4 Shirakawa.
10:13
And typically it was a substructure.
10:15
And then the rest was Kylie Saw or the the black synthetic
10:19
cheesecloth. That's a lot easier to work
10:21
with. So the more context that we
10:24
have, the more we realize that it's not really the end all be
10:27
all. And it is like really the
10:30
pinnacle of human effort, but you know, at what expense.
10:35
And we've also heard too anecdotally that the taste
10:38
difference isn't huge. So from a workplace hazard like,
10:42
are we putting people's health on the line by creating such
10:46
demand for this when when it doesn't make the world's largest
10:51
impact in the tea, even though it's a heritage method?
10:54
Yeah, but you know, Ryan, what, what is our position to make
10:58
such comment? You know, like that's true.
11:01
We we've been talking to all these farmers.
11:03
They were talking about all of these laborers works, but also
11:06
by the end of the day, they were like, this is traditional.
11:09
This is how Tancha was made for hundreds of years.
11:12
And they are spending their effort trying to preserve this
11:15
really dying art. And, you know, really mad
11:18
respect to all these people from, you know, different area
11:21
in in Wuji. And we've heard that, you know,
11:23
there are other there are places in Japan starting doing home zoo
11:26
too. There are home zoo starting to
11:28
be constructed in places like Yame.
11:31
And I think this is a great news for this, you know, traditional
11:34
art. There is something really
11:37
magical and beautiful standing underneath that straw canopy,
11:41
looking through all of the sunlights, kind of creating this
11:44
little thin light spots scattering through the entire
11:47
tea field. Yeah.
11:48
The actual like color and like temperature of the light, so to
11:51
speak, feel very different under the Hongzhou than it does under
11:56
the kale shock. So like the actual spectral like
12:00
light that is making it to the plants is different.
12:03
You can feel it. You can see it.
12:05
And the temperature is really obvious because, like a lot of
12:08
these Canon shots we saw are at least three layers.
12:12
They're actually pretty thick. And between the layers, you
12:15
have, you know, space for air to kind of flow through and, you
12:18
know, kind of carry a weight out of the heat being retained by
12:22
the color of the Kalasha. It's black, takes a lot of heat,
12:25
but for home. So it's really just one layer
12:28
above us. And it's so much, you know,
12:31
obviously more cool than Kalasha.
12:34
It's kind of amazing. Yeah, that's true.
12:37
That's true. Although I just really hope that
12:39
this, the matcha boom doesn't put undue pressure to
12:44
incentivize producers to do it when they just don't have the
12:47
human capital like the actual skilled people on the site to
12:52
not only create but maintain these structures, especially
12:55
over the course of the season. Kind of really that that story
12:58
of how dangerous it is really was something I never even
13:02
considered. So, you know, there's multiple
13:04
sides to these these things. Well, it's creates wonderful
13:08
tasting matcha, that's true. And I will be much, much more
13:12
grateful in the future consuming Titsumi Hong.
13:15
So shaded Asahi or any other cultivars?
13:18
We saw some other cultivars being planned underneath Hong
13:20
Soo too. And it's, you know, it really
13:24
brings people new appreciation to this wonderful drink.
13:27
The rate of picking is also something that I really
13:32
appreciate. I think Sam and I together with
13:35
just a little tiny bit of help in the demoing early on about
13:40
how to do it, we did. We, we did.
13:44
Because these plants are in big rows.
13:46
You're only doing half of 1 Bush at a time and then you move and
13:51
then the other half would eventually be picked by someone
13:54
else who's on the other side of the row.
13:56
Kind of makes sense. And I think we move down about 8
13:59
plants in three hours, so about four tea bushes with a little
14:04
bit of help. And we collected about.
14:07
Underneath 2 kilos each. Yeah, just underneath 2 kilos
14:11
each, so between 3 to 4 kilos. And that's of leaf that has like
14:16
these fresh stems in it. And of course it's fresh leaf.
14:19
So there's a lot of water content.
14:21
I forget what the percentage is, but it's got to be at least you
14:24
you take like 20% of that weight is what ends up making it is
14:28
matcha. Oh yeah.
14:28
Like, you know, the shrinkage rate is about 5 times for a lot
14:33
of these teas in general. And you got to take away all of
14:35
these, you know, stems and things.
14:37
So it's another 20% of, you know, decrease from that weight.
14:42
So very little, very little tea. Actually remarkably unclear.
14:48
If we have picked more Hansu shaded matcha now, then we have
14:54
consumed Tizumi Hanzu shaded matcha, then we have consumed.
14:59
I hope that we have ever in our lives that have contributed back
15:03
the the amount of effort that the singular processing step has
15:07
kind of wild. It is wild.
15:09
Something also very interesting that I learned is that so I, I
15:13
was actually quite curious about how the winds are not going to
15:17
blow out of these straws away doing Hanzu shading.
15:20
Because in some other parts of Uji or further out into Wazuka,
15:25
Uji Tawala, people are constantly talking about this
15:28
wind damage of Kanisha hitting on the tea Bush, creating some
15:32
bruised on the tea Leafs. And all of these winds in higher
15:36
elevation to mountains kind of sometimes destroy the, the
15:40
shading and needs to be constantly fixed.
15:42
So you know, I, I asked the question to our farmer today and
15:46
they said that there's very little wind actually underneath
15:49
that area that will do any damage or blow any of the straw
15:54
away. So I guess there is also a
15:56
physical or geographical limitation of where can homes be
16:00
done because you know, if it's in some of the more mountainous
16:05
area, it there's just really no way for you to be able to hold
16:09
all of the rice straw together as canopy.
16:12
That's interesting. I actually never thought about
16:14
that until you just said that there's a lot of local
16:17
constraints around production methods.
16:19
That's pretty interesting. Yeah.
16:21
So it's really a limited technique, not only being
16:25
limited by human or, you know, laborers, but also by geography.
16:31
That makes sense. That really makes sense.
16:33
Something that I was very surprised by was the vibe.
16:37
We were the only foreigners there.
16:39
And I would have expected that when you're coordinating with
16:44
this many tea pickers because there were a lot of people
16:46
there. And it's the busiest time of
16:49
year for tea farmers in general who are putting in these crazy
16:54
hours and constantly working and I'm sure getting very little
16:58
sleep, sacrificing for all of us so that we can consume and sell
17:02
Matcha is that it was so calm. It was the atmosphere was also
17:09
so positive. Everyone was laughing and joking
17:13
and there was some chit chat. I couldn't understand it because
17:15
I can't understand Japanese, but everyone's interaction was so
17:20
positive and everyone was just so grateful and gracious to
17:24
everyone there. In my mind at least, like a
17:27
little bit more chaotic, but it really wasn't, It just felt
17:32
really genuine in a way that I, I guess I didn't, I didn't think
17:37
what would happen under a such circumstances.
17:39
I, as someone like myself, I tend to get a little frazzled
17:43
when you have to do a lot of coordination with a lot of
17:45
different people. And there's all this time
17:47
pressure and those, all these complexities and you have all
17:50
these people who have various levels of experience working on
17:55
this thing that you spent all year getting to this point.
17:58
Because you know, most, almost all of the farmers here, the
18:01
good farmers only harvest once per year.
18:04
And like all of your eggs are in this one basket in a few nice
18:08
days because they don't pick when it rains like this, all
18:11
this. It was more like a, you know,
18:14
community gathering for them to, you know, do some work and
18:17
chitchat. I'm sure it was is actual work.
18:20
Yeah, yeah. But it didn't feel like that.
18:22
Yeah, it doesn't feel like. It all day.
18:23
They certainly do not get that a project manager anxiety that you
18:27
do. But yeah, it's super friendly.
18:31
Everyone obvious obviously feels like know each other for a long
18:34
time. And I was asking one of the
18:36
farmers that, you know, how is the interaction between
18:41
different gardens and farmers within Fuji?
18:43
And this farmers told me that it's actually a super friendly
18:47
and small community. Everyone helps each other out
18:50
during harvest and processing. So, you know, like it's you
18:55
really get this kind of, you know, vibe like almost like a,
18:59
you know, Miyazaki movie from, you know, all these mountain
19:03
villages or small villages. You know, people are friendly,
19:06
people are nice and people are just right there.
19:09
You know, I think a nice nice life makes me almost want to
19:13
retired here. But actually, like, a Miyazaki
19:16
movie is such a fantastic way of putting it.
19:18
It almost felt like a fiction, so much so that we didn't notice
19:22
or feel any of the pressure. And like, even the farmer who
19:26
who invited us was like asking us.
19:29
And, you know, if we have any questions, feel free to ask.
19:32
And they were spontaneously explaining things as we were
19:35
going for like, I don't know, a good, like, half hour.
19:38
I felt so guilty. It's like there's so much going
19:41
on. It's like it's OK, just you can
19:43
leave us. I'm sure you're so busy.
19:45
But they were so. Nice.
19:46
Yeah. And, you know, this is really
19:48
the busiest time of the year and we do not have a proper
19:52
translator to do the communication.
19:54
So we had to relied on my very limited Japanese and the farmers
19:58
were like very actively using, you know, Google Translate to
20:02
help facilitate the communication.
20:05
So we were, you know, very grateful about that.
20:08
And you know. And as we really convey the
20:11
message that we really want to learn about tea farming, about
20:15
Hitsumi, about Hunzu shading, they were being super
20:19
transparent about all the information and the questions
20:22
that we ask. Yeah, when you're really this
20:24
close to the product into the farm, the amount of gatekeeping
20:28
really just seems to vanish. And much is such a unique
20:31
product. It's so weird in so many ways
20:33
because it's honestly like from a really high level perspective,
20:38
sometimes being a student of matcha, trying to learn as much
20:42
as we can about this product, its history, its legacy and its
20:46
nuances is that it feels gate kept a lot of times at every
20:50
single level, including the preparation through all these
20:53
ceremonial institutions and what all the cultural associations
20:58
people put behind it. And like, you know, the, the T
21:01
schools are one of the one of the more compelling or
21:06
interesting things about the tea schools that I think they use as
21:09
motivation for the students and access and mystery is that there
21:13
are a lot of secret teachings. So if you are in or a sink, I'm
21:16
multi sink. And I'm sure the other schools
21:18
have some of this, although I know some are more transparent
21:20
than others. There's a lot of this concept of
21:23
secret teachings. It's kind of like you're almost
21:25
joining a, you know, a secret society or a living legacy, but
21:30
you can only see more and more of it until you get into higher
21:33
and higher levels progress. So it often feels very gate
21:37
capped. And we're also really interested
21:39
right now learning about the wholesalers and the chashi and
21:42
the tea blenders. The tea purveyors also feels
21:45
very, very gate capped. We were doing some retail
21:49
learning of how products are being positioned in Uji and
21:53
they're also trying to see the macho shortage first hand, which
21:56
is totally real. You can see out of stock and
21:59
quantity limits here in Uji. We're here in May for, for
22:02
matcha cans. And so only you can only buy one
22:05
at a time. And we were at one store and
22:07
they only had two products left. And I asked, they're the same
22:11
price, but they had different names.
22:12
And I asked what's the difference?
22:14
And we, she, we kept hearing over and over they're the same,
22:18
same product, same product. And I'm like, well, how can they
22:21
be the same product? They have different names.
22:23
And then Zhongjun helped facilitate the communication a
22:28
bit, and we learned that one was for Motosynke, 1 was for
22:33
Utosynke, and it's the same blend but two different poetic
22:38
names. Different names.
22:39
So this really adds another layer of the complexity of the
22:43
naming scheme in in Uchi or in Matcha 1 product can literally
22:48
be the same but having different names because their usage or
22:52
their end customers. So they take this full circle.
22:55
I mean, it really feels very gate captain.
22:58
There's all of this complexity to learn when you're learning
23:02
it, but whenever we're interacting with tea farmers, it
23:05
just seems to vanish. If you can like have the
23:09
opportunity to meet tea farmers and talk to them and be in the
23:12
field. I've never had that feeling at
23:15
all. It's like all of the stuffiness
23:17
and associations and secrecy and complexity, it's just brought
23:22
all the way back down to earth on from the ground, like in the
23:26
soil, like it's just the raw thing and people are much less
23:29
hesitant to share information. Yeah.
23:32
And they are like much less enclosed to the outside and also
23:37
much less enclosed to each other to all of these tea farmers.
23:42
We have heard that and we have seen them gathering in all these
23:47
processing facility, helping each other out to create better
23:51
tension or better, you know, other types of tea.
23:53
So it, there is a really, you know, strong sense of community
23:56
that exists here in Japan in the tea world.
23:59
So that's quite, quite the opposite there, I guess to, to,
24:04
to some other, you know, communities that we saw.
24:07
Yeah, absolutely. So Songjun, if anyone's
24:11
listening, and I'm sure everyone who's a regular listener is
24:13
definitely interested in doing this type of thing in the
24:16
future. Like what general advice could
24:19
we offer people who want to have experience doing hand picked tea
24:24
either in Uji or in other places?
24:26
And you know, how, what are the mechanics that they could do to
24:30
go about getting opportunities like this?
24:33
Like if we were to deconstruct, how did we end up there today?
24:37
What lessons can we share with others that might be valuable?
24:41
Yeah, definitely. First of all, try to build
24:43
relationship before tea harvest season.
24:46
There's really very little chance for you to be able to get
24:50
a hold of a tea farmer in which that you do not know before.
24:54
To have them respond to you and have them help you to schedule,
24:58
you know, some time to, you know, sit down and learn, you
25:02
know, learn your story, learn your personality, learned, you
25:06
know, what do you want to do here and then lead you to the
25:08
tea garden to take tea. They are like spinning around
25:12
like tornadoes trying to get things done in midst of all
25:17
these, you know, chaotic situation, you know, got to
25:21
arrange different tea pickers doing different, you know,
25:25
cultivars, got to do all the schedule of the tea processing
25:29
right after the fresh, fresh leaves being collected.
25:32
They are busy. So definitely try to come your
25:37
make your visit to these tea farmers, you know during off
25:40
seasons for the first time. Get to know them before asking
25:43
to participate in the tea picking.
25:47
But that's of course for Wuji and for other regions.
25:50
If you just want to, you know, be able to stand in the tea
25:53
garden, you know, experiencing, you know, plugging tea leaves
25:56
off from tea bushes, there are other regions outside of Wuji
26:00
that are much more loose. So places like, you know,
26:04
Wazuka, places like Wuja Terwala, there's a lot of these
26:08
farms that actually have connections with local schools
26:12
and they ship, you know, buses, buses and buses of students to
26:16
all these tea fields to participate in, you know, tea
26:20
picking. So in those areas you definitely
26:22
will have a better chance, you know, participating and you
26:26
know, getting to learn the first hand experience, you know,
26:28
without, you know, having too much planning in advance.
26:33
And a lot of the producers that are in UGI proper are so
26:40
inundated with requests to meet and with business inquiries and
26:45
that it's not uncommon to hear stories of them just not having
26:50
time to respond will take a a long time and a lot of
26:54
persistence a probably to get that that first meeting and
26:57
would be much easier in general with some form of introduction
27:01
typically. So if you wanted to form direct
27:04
relationships with them, the time to do that was probably a
27:07
few years ago before they were so inundated.
27:10
And, you know, specialty matcha was less of a thing, right?
27:13
It was much more novel and the idea of going and and not
27:17
selling your teachers to the wholesalers, but to someone that
27:19
was going to sell it on as a single origin, single cultivar
27:22
products, relatively new. But everyone's rushing in.
27:25
It's a big land, a goldmine land rush.
27:28
And actually we eventually want to source them some tension for
27:31
our mills. But we're doing this purely
27:33
academically. Everyone that we're talking to,
27:36
we're just really there to learn.
27:37
And then to share the content either anonymously or
27:40
unanonymously here. I'm on this podcast to share it
27:43
with everyone else. So also intention really
27:45
matters. And also, so getting some
27:47
background knowledge, walking in knowing what cultivars are and
27:51
some, you know, a lot of the basics around much as production
27:56
and history, et cetera, goes a really long way.
27:59
Like no farmer wants to be be that first entry point.
28:04
So like one of the general good pieces of advice for all
28:08
startups and all businesses to be interesting.
28:11
And a lot of these people who are contacting them are starting
28:15
up a Matcha business and you can just pick a random location in
28:18
the world and, and they're Matcha brand.
28:21
And I could see myself if I was a tea farmer, just not being
28:25
that interested. Like everyone says they're
28:28
interested in preserving tradition, innovating on the
28:31
product and showcasing to consumers, etcetera, etcetera.
28:34
So I'm sure after you see this enough times, you're like, OK,
28:37
well, I already sell all of my product.
28:39
I'm already dealing with a lot of these B2B accounts and I
28:43
don't have the capacity for anymore.
28:45
And I'm getting like 3 emails a week like I'm probably just
28:49
going to stop responding. And that's approximately where
28:51
we are with all of these Rockstar famous farmers.
28:54
And would you proper? And so I think there's a lot for
28:57
property sourcing where you're forming direct relationships.
29:00
The real land of opportunity is going to the places that are not
29:05
as famous and the people that you do not see online.
29:08
And we ourselves are not there yet, but we have heard a lot
29:12
about other regions what are much more obscure and off the
29:16
beaten path, both in Kilter Prefecture and other
29:19
prefectures. And the difficult part is
29:22
knowing who to contact. That is a game that we are still
29:25
actively trying to figure out as well.
29:27
And there's, it's ironic of me to say this because we're
29:29
sitting here in Uji having that, you know, worked as a Rockstar
29:32
uji farmer because they're all Rockstar farmers.
29:34
But it seems like that's where all the opportunity is, where
29:37
these people are just not getting absolutely inundated to
29:41
the point where they just cannot respond to everybody.
29:43
Yeah, which is definitely a resi.
29:45
It's ultra competitive in terms of, you know, getting yourself
29:49
in front of the line and to be able to just speak to anyone.
29:53
But for, you know, all the other more obscured tea farmers or tea
29:58
areas out there, it's challenging, it's difficult.
30:01
Frequently, these people will only just have a telephone
30:03
number sit somewhere on the newspaper or on some very
30:08
obscured website. And that's the only way that you
30:10
can contact them. And you need to have a car.
30:13
You need to be able to navigate, you know, through all of these
30:16
regions to get to them. And you need to speak the
30:19
language because, you know, they really would not be able to, you
30:23
know, communicate to you that easily.
30:26
You know, a lot of them probably don't even know very much about
30:30
how to use a cell phone properly.
30:32
So using Google Translate might might be a little bit
30:35
challenging to facilitate a trans, you know, conversation
30:38
with them. Now maybe for some of the older
30:40
farmers, yeah. So if we were to summarize, it's
30:43
very difficult right now to meet the people in Uji proper.
30:46
If you can, that's wonderful. Introductions definitely help
30:49
coming in with the right amount of knowledge and there's just
30:52
like completely by our perception by people we've
30:55
talked to in the industry. There's a lot of opportunities
30:59
for other regions outside of Yamai and Uji proper and Wazuka
31:04
and Uji Tawara, there's lots of other places making great
31:07
products. That is true.
31:08
That is true. And we have seen some really
31:11
young farmers previously farming other types of tea like kabu
31:14
secha or Yokudo starting to convert or starting trying to
31:19
learn how to farm tensha in other regions.
31:22
So there's hope and there are probably a lot of upcoming
31:25
opportunities in those places. Yeah, absolutely, which would be
31:29
really great just for the specialty movement in general
31:31
because that kind of expands the portfolio of options for
31:35
consumers. There might be some really
31:37
interesting terroir expressive places that are producing some
31:42
fantastic tea. And you know, not all cultivars
31:45
are suitable for all environments too.
31:47
So like when you're talking about terroir and environmental
31:50
factors and in any particular geography, you know, what
31:54
cultivar you have is very just similar to wine.
31:58
I think there's a lot of grapes like Pinot Noir that are just
32:01
super ultra sensitive and really can only be grown in certain
32:04
environments, but very similar for cultivars too.
32:08
So, you know, some are going to be better expressed in certain
32:11
regions than in others. Yeah.
32:14
So expanding the horizons a bit would be super cool.
32:18
I mean, there's probably room for 100 new Japanese specialty
32:23
matcha companies and each focusing on a different area.
32:26
Like there's really a lot of opportunity here.
32:29
And quite frankly, I think that's where we're going to head
32:32
next and focus. A lot of our effort in coming
32:34
years is, is trying to find some of these regions that are making
32:40
great product. Just no one talks about it or it
32:42
gets shoved into some gigantic blend.
32:44
And it's probably going to be good for consumers too, because
32:47
all of the tea that's coming out of Uji is just going to get more
32:50
and more and more and more expensive.
32:52
All of this hand picked tea. And a lot of the tea here is the
32:56
price is going nowhere but up for multiple reasons.
32:59
Not like it's the shortage, it's the economic environment.
33:03
It's the demand. It's the demand being, you know,
33:07
uh, you know, causing things like the shortage.
33:09
So, you know, just increasing the supply of single origin,
33:12
single cult farty can expand beyond what's, what's currently
33:15
out there. So, uh, it's going to become
33:19
more of a luxury product where it's just not very accessible.
33:23
So even as a consumer now, we should enjoy the prices that we
33:27
have because I bet in three years they double.
33:29
This is the rough proximate X explanation.
33:32
And anyone in the Chinese tea world really knows this first
33:35
hand with poor prices. I started buying tea, poor tea
33:41
in 2013 and and I remember thinking that was kind of
33:46
expensive at the time. And I recently went back and
33:50
referenced some of the pour cakes that I own and I'm aging
33:55
and they like forexed in price and they're not even like that
33:59
special. It's if we learn from that, it's
34:02
time to age some tension in your freezer.
34:04
Yeah, Maybe if you have the ability to mill it fresh.
34:06
So we should really enjoy these prices despite how high they are
34:11
while they're still at an accessible level.
34:13
But by expanding the horizons for these different specialty
34:16
products to other regions, we have the ability to increase
34:20
supply of of the transparent products.
34:24
Or you can learn something and it's probably a great
34:27
intersection of value and quality because it's not famous
34:32
and because the demand will be relatively low.
34:35
And then the hardest problem that that brand is doing is the
34:38
consumer education piece, which brands are doing anyway, right?
34:43
Like most of the matcha companies that are selling
34:46
product are selling product to even B to B or most of them are
34:49
selling it to people who don't necessarily know a whole lot
34:52
about about matcha. So place like eat a town, which
34:55
is pretty close to Uji, I think it's an hour or two away, could
34:58
be someone's Uji, you know, without all the legacy and
35:02
history. But you know, from a product
35:04
perspective, you know, telling the story of the matcha there
35:07
and the different terroir and micro growing environments.
35:10
But there's all sorts of interesting stories to be told
35:13
to any consumer who's just coming in so fresh.
35:17
Not everyone needs to be taught uji, uji, uji early on and
35:21
yummy, yummy, yummy. It's at some point, it's no
35:26
longer going to be where value lies, which is where the vast
35:29
majority of people drinking matcha, you know, if they care
35:32
about the price. And it definitely matters.
35:34
And we would like to see higher quality options that are
35:37
artisanally produced in the mid range.
35:40
That can be someone's quote, UN quote, everyday cup of coffee,
35:45
you know, the product that's Tazumi or Asahi, or you know,
35:48
from cultivars that are difficult to grow like Asahi or
35:51
like Siamidori. There's just not much of them.
35:55
They're very special, finite experiences for people to have.
35:59
Yeah, absolutely. We are.
36:03
We keep talking about this so much a shortage, but, you know,
36:06
as we were even, you know, roaming through Uchi, there are
36:10
a lot of these land waiting just to be farmed.
36:13
There are a lot of these abandoned land.
36:15
There are a lot of these tea farms that are not necessarily
36:19
making tensha. There are a lot of potential for
36:23
Japan to produce much, much more delicious tea in the future.
36:27
And it's, you know, just waiting for us to discovered.
36:31
Yeah, we on our walk through Shirakawa, walking from, from
36:36
Uji, you know, center Uji, like right near the train station and
36:40
branching out. It was really interesting.
36:42
We saw a lot of abandoned tea plantations.
36:46
There was a completely abandoned tea plantation two blocks away
36:50
from the Oklahoma Tea Garden, the very famous one from Horati
36:54
Shiman. If you walk to, if you go into
36:57
the Horati Shiman retail store, I don't know if they have it
37:00
anymore, but they did the first time I went.
37:02
There's this little map and there's this little hike that
37:05
you can. It's not really a hike.
37:06
It's like a 10 minute walk up the hill where you can see one
37:11
of their gardens. So we, you know, we popped up
37:13
there and started our long adventure there.
37:16
And then two blocks over, bam, abandoned tea field.
37:19
And it's pretty obvious that it's abandoned.
37:21
There's weeds everywhere. Nothing's kept.
37:24
All of the structure shading structures are completely
37:27
dilapidated. All falling apart.
37:30
Things are getting rustic. It's clearly a abandoned tea
37:33
field. Arguably from one of the single
37:37
greatest plots of land to grow in the entire.
37:41
World. Yeah.
37:42
It's like you see a abandoned grape vineyard right next to
37:45
Romani County. It's kind of, you know, hard to
37:49
understand. So it's also the sad reality
37:52
here is that there's just not enough, you know, labor, there's
37:56
not enough people here to continue to support this
37:59
industry. It's just, you know, a lot of
38:01
people who really care and work very hard.
38:03
But you know, there's still a succession problem here, even
38:05
though this region's getting all of this recognition, which is a
38:09
little bit concerning to see considering the probably what
38:13
our astronomical prices they they could charge for tea made
38:18
here if they wanted to. And then tis obviously things I.
38:21
Would have if I could really just letting go my mind sitting
38:26
right there using them. Not everyone's so money
38:29
motivated. OK, I want delicious tea.
38:33
I want to buy more than one person per can dry and.
38:36
That's true. That's so real, that is painful.
38:39
It's very unfortunate. So, uh, that was our adventure
38:43
there. Nuji picking tea.
38:44
I think this is a fine place to stop.
38:46
Umm, We're going to continue to record umm throughout our
38:49
experiences here in Japan for the 2025 harvest.
38:53
Umm, and do these real time takes or near real time takes.
38:58
Umm, so you get our raw impressions of what it was like.
39:02
And, uh, thank you so much for listening and we'll see you on
39:04
the next one. See you.
39:05
Stay tuned.