Miyazakien ‘s black tea are made of native variety tea, which name is “Hongu”. The name comes from a mountain located near Miyazakien because it is said that the seed of the “Hongu” came from that mountain area. The leaves are carefully processed by hand into black tea. This video is about to kneading. A professional kneader, Mr. Y, has been doing this work quietly as if he was doing his Sadhana for almost 3 hours already.
Recently it has become very difficult to obtain the knitted mat with straw as you see laying on the floor, but it is indispensable for tea making by hand like this.
The tea leaves picked up for our “Wa Kocha”, the Japanese black tea, will be transformed into a form to be delivered to everyone through such a hand-working work and a sun drying process.
Today, on 10th May, the first picking of the tea at Miyazakien in 2017 began.
You may have seen some “eighty-eighth night” news on 2nd May this year. The day is traditionally famous for the day many tea gardens in Japan start a tea picking. The eighty eighth night means it has passed 87 days from the beginning of spring and the best season of pecking tea begins. In warm regions on flat land or seaside area, it is just about it. But in this area, Okazaki – Nukata district is high in altitude, tea picking should start slightly later.
Fortunately for this year’s tea, despite the fact that the temperature tended to be low from the last March to April, the frost was hardly damaged and the buds steadily grew.
Miyazakien has a facility to process tea leaves into tea in the garden. So, for a while from now, there are so many works to do like tea picking and making rough tea in the garden. And also we have consignment of tea leaves picked up by neighbouring tea farmers. It makes a busy time, so work continues daily, until late midnight. In addition to processing green tea, we have to do something that is unavoidable for Miyazakien, such as processing of “Wa Kocha”, the Japanese black tea, in the garden, and also preparing Hojicha and Matcha.
We will do our best this year to be able to deliver delicious tea to everyone, under the weather and health.
From tomorrow, May 8th (Monday), acceptance of the special exclusive membership programme will begin for the Okazaki Experience Team.
In the Miyazakien, you enjoy harvesting Japanese tea leaves and processing tea in the programme entitled “Hidden Okazaki Harvest Experience.” We cooperate with cafe Yuzuki in the same Nukata district to execute this programme adding to harvest and process yuzu, Japanese flavour rich citrus and white potatoes which are specialty products of local area.