Tea Emperor

Agricultural products from Japan have started to get a new ring within international  food industry. This term is radioactive food. Fukushima disaster has lead into situation where people are increasingly observative on where their food for example tea has come from. 2011 and many years after that mark a catastrophic crop for tea farms close to Fukushima nuclear plant. I don’t know the exact size of the affected area, but anyhow even the once famously clean brand of Japanese food is now being tainted. There seems to be no way for a single agricultural producer inside the affected area to continue their business. Agricultural producers outside the affected area will not have it easy either.

Terrible accident at Fukushima nuclear power plant will have long-lasting effects on tea production of Japan. The thing is that tea plantations can still grow tea, but there will be the dubious stigmata of post-Fukushima flush.

TERRIBLE BUT TRUE

Year 2011 will start slow downward trend in Japanese tea industry and there is very little that Japanese can do about this thing. I expect to see marketing campaigns, which focus on remote pristine areas and traditionally high quality tea produce. But human mind is a funny little thing as when it starts to think something possible it immediately grows into something, which is quite probable. This will cause the slowdown in Japanese tea sales.

THE SILVER LINING

The silver lining in this case is not for Japanese tea industry, althought there probably is one, but I can’t see it right now. No, the thing that I’m thinking of is Taiwan. That beautiful island has very similar geographic and climate conditions as Japan as well as well-established tea culture. My projection is that Taiwan is going to rise its profile as a quality tea exporter and it won’t take long before Taiwan exports much more of the total tea production than the measly 3%, which it currently does. The world – beware – fine Oolong tea is coming!

So, my review was a long time coming as my wife so eloquently put it in the previous article – Tea Emperor’s own review post will come soon after mine.

MAKERS OF THE TEA
Small tea plantation in Japan under private ownership. Can tea get any more real? Not much!

INSTRUCTIONS
Instruction manuals (and asking the way if lost) are for women and engineers. They are helpful if one has no idea about the topic, but useless if one doesn’t know how to read. Luckily I can read and I am rather new to tea. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I drink several big mugs of the damn thing every day, but ceremony and gong fu are far beyond the reach of my skills. Good thing that they include all the necessary guides on their website too, check them here.

COVER LETTER
They had included a very comforting cover letter, which told about the teas in question. Sample bags were stabled on to the paper so it was impossible to mix them up and therefore accidentally review a wrong product. Simple and effective not to mention beautiful.

THE TEA
Now you know that supportive items were fine, but how about the tea itself?

1st steep for half a minute
Refreshing and light taste with sweet aftertaste. Just my kind of a cup of tea that’s what this is, but then again I am from Finland and the strongest spice that we use here is black pepper. We like our food mild and vodka strong and cold. We drink coffee here tea, however, is a drink for old women… Anyway I liked my first cup.

2nd steep for about ten seconds
Much stronger and pit over the top for me. I liked the aftertaste though and had high hopes for the third steep.

3rd steep for half a minute again
This one already had lost its luster and was easily downed as a refreshing drink.

4th steep for one minute

Frustratingly bland and got quickly thrown away, but the left over green tea salad was fantastic!

I ordered few books from the Amazon and already I can say that tea intertwines with every aspect of the society in such an interesting manner that it would be a shame not to write about it. Currently I’m reading Roy Moxham’s A Brief History of Tea, which so far has been a fascinating read.

I’m going to start a series of posts that dive into the long history of tea. I’ll build small tidbits from here and there so it won’t be too academical, dry and boring. Have you ever heard of history that is not boring? I haven’t, so that’s I try to invent non-boring history. Let me know if your face is starting to turn green in a non-tea manner and I’ll make it even more non-boring.