Tea farmers can invent diverse flavors of black tea or oolong tea by controlling conditions of withering or oxidation, processing in some unique ways, selecting cultivars, elaborate management of their tea plantations etc.
Especially withering process can be the most important for the generation of aroma compounds from pre-cursors in tissues in tea leaves. Sophisticated withering skill of tea farmers provide their black teas with a wide variety of characteristics such as fruits-like aroma, floral fragrance, various texture, wide range of tannin etc. It’s like a magic! Thus I’d like to call them “Wizards of the United Tea Estates of Shizuoka”.
The prominent skills of the tea inventors would be derived from their many trials and errors. They must know ten thousand ways that wouldn’t work to produce their desired teas, as Edison said.
Wizards of tea estates in Shizuoka discussed each other over the cups and leaves.
Even in the event, tea farmers from Shizuoka discuss about black tea each other.
Mr. Yamamoto, one of the wizard of Makinohara tea estate, sometimes performs experience events of black tea hand processing. In the event he hold before, I enjoyed hand processing, seeing the change of tea leaves with progress of withering and oxidation, sensory test, various arrange of flavor etc. It’s also like a magic show.
When checking the progress of oxidase reaction, we could look the change of color to more red.
All participants compared brewed black tea and aroma of tea leaves after infusion each other.
His product, I’d like to call “amber magic”, won the prize in the Japanese black tea conference.
Japan has also various proverbs so-called “Kotowaza” as well as the countries all over the world. “Junin Toiro” is one of them, which means literally “Ten people, ten colors”, indicating diversity in human. Mr. Shibamoto, who can produce diverse black and oolong teas, has launched a series of his diverse teas named as “Tocha Toiro”. The name of this product means literally “Ten teas, ten flavors”, named after the Kotowaza proverb. As the name implies, his amber magic can create ten flavors according ten desires.
Amber magic of Kanetou Miura-en was prized as “Platina Award” in the section of aromatic tea of Japanese Teas Award.
Black teas produced by Kanetou Miura-en. The left one “Premiun Spring Hand Pluck” is prized 1st place in the tea competition in Shizuoka prefecture and Japanese Tea Award 2016.
Japanese Teas Award is prized in the annual event “Tokyo Tea Party” hold in Hikarie in Shibuya ward, Tokyo. In this year, Tokyo Tea Party 2017 will be hold from 1st to 3rd December. The prized teas of Japanese Tea Award are audited 3 times. In the first and second auditions, various tea-related professionals selected prominent teas from hundreds applied teas. At the end, consumers and customers elected their best preference in Tokyo Tea Party. The best ones in each section are prized based on the election.
Now 2nd selection has already finished. Several dozen of prominent tea from the United Tea Estates of Shizuoka were selected as fine products for the final selection in Tokyo Tea Party. Of course, green teas or other types of Shizuoka teas were also selected.
Let’s enjoy the Amber Magics in Tokyo Tea Party and the United Tea Estates of Shizuoka!