2021 Obubu’s Shincha – New Tea Arrival
In the middle of April in 2021, Wazuka town, where our farm is located, had a huge amount of damage from frost.
Usually, at this point of the year, tea fields are full of beautiful fresh green new buds just like the photo below.
And this is what we saw in our tea fields this year.
We were very shocked when this happened especially because it was slightly warmer during last winter and we were very excited to harvest fresh spring tea little earlier than regular year.
Once frost fell on the new buds, it can easily freeze the new buds which has low freezing resistance and ending up burning the buds. After the buds got frost, it is almost impossible to make Sencha green tea out of the leaves.
However, although frost reduces considerably the amount of the harvest, it also appears to create a very interesting type of tea! If the frost wasn’t too strong to the point of completely burning the buds during the night, it actually helps to develop the taste of the tea afterwards.
Although, this year, Kyoto region had a too strong frost damage to make the tea out of the leaves which had frost affect, we were able to make it in 2019 when there was a gentle frost affect.
If you are curious about “the frost tea” we made in 2019, please also check it out from here.
Even there was a huge impact of the frost earlier this year, there were some new buds which survived under the condition and new buds which started to sprout after a while as well.
Thankfully, these new beautiful buds have been growing well and we were able to start harvesting the spring tea from the 30th of April!
This year, we are getting a lot of help to continue making our delicious tea from domestic volunteers since we are under the condition of not being able to welcome Interns internationally, who support a lot during harvest seasons, due to the pandemic.
Although our president, Akky has been feeling sad in early spring due to the frost damage, finally, we got to see him smile again thanks to the tea’s strong vital force
and our volunteer’s huge support.
We’ll continue our spring harvest to produce Tencha, Gyokuro and Bancha until the beginning of June and do our best to make delicious teas for you be able to enjoy a cup of Obubu’s tea!
If you are currently located in Japan, and would be interested in participating in Obubu’s Volunteers, more details are the link below and you can register directly from the bottom of the page.