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!

Dr. Kaijun Niu, at Tohoku University Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering in Sendai, and his colleagues found that men and women who are aged 70 and older and drank four or more, versus one or fewer, cups of green tea daily were 44 percent less likely to have symptoms of depression. This means that drinking several cups of green tea every day will very likely improve your spirits (like a true scientist, Dr. Kaijun Niu suggests further studies before any strong recommendations can be outlined). Also several prior studies have linked green tea consumption to reduced levels of psychological distress, so this information is very solid. Furthermore, through history, green tea has been associated with positive effects to both body and soul.

What makes Dr. Kaijun Niu’s research findings even more interesting is that if green tea was to be substituted with black tea, oolong tea or coffee then there are no beneficial psychological effects. What seems to explain this is the amino acid theanine, which apparently has soothing effect on the brain. Looks like all kind of treatment and processing of tea will diminish the nutritional value of the tea. Naturally this is especially true for coffee, which is roasted. After reading about this study, I’m willing to make the recommendation that we should always drink and eat as lightly processed beverages and foods as possible for example berry powders.