Do you like Japanese Green Tea?

Green tea has been mixed up with  Japanese life deeply from long long ago. Maybe I can't  live without green tea.

After driving  hillside of south edge of Kyoto prefecture along Wazuka river for about 30 minutes, we can see the vast Japanese tea field ,which is home of Uji-cya is called Wazuka Chagenkyo. Uji-cya is one of excellent Japanese green teas in Japan. Tea-field expands  on slopes and  stretchs about 6km both sides of the river.  Ridges of tea-trees look like green waves or patchwork. This tea fields  in Wazuka-cyo were  listed in  Cultural Scenery of Kyoto  lately. 

dynamic shape

 From late spring to early summer farmers pick shoots of tea trees. They steam them and dry while shaping like needle. This is Sencha-tea( a kind of  green tea). Sencha-tea is roasted. This is Houjicha-tea(a kind of green tea) The shoots are  grown underneath a cover  and are steamed , dried and grinded into green powder.This is Matcha-tea( a kind of green tea). We use it at tea ceremony.

 Unfortunately  when we visited there, tea-picking was almost over.
Speaking of tea-picking, there is a tea-picking song. This song expresses a scene of tea-picking of farmers. When I was a child, this song was in the  music-textbook of elementary school. We learned it. 

 Many Japanese  beautiful scenes in the four seasons were expressed  by beautiful Japanese words were in the textbook in those days.  I like these songs. Some words of them may not be used now,I wonder? And I wonder how many songs are left in a textbook now?  We used to play Otedama,singing  this song.



These leaves will be picked  for pet- bottles from now.



The trees this side are cut green leaves and its brownish is tea trees.

At first, a high priest of the temple near here planted seeds of Green tea at Wazuka in Kamakura era.( about 800 years ago). During Edo era( about 400 years ago),this place became dominion of Imperial House and those tea were delivered for Kyoto Imperial Palace.





Persimmon trees are left among tea  trees. This is feature here .


Farmers cut trees of mountains by hatchets and cultivated there and planted tea trees. When vitality of tea trees declined, they replaced to vigorous trees. They repeated this unremittingly from ancestor to descendant. Green tea field blend with farmers village. So we can see here where green tea field unifies the life of farmers. That is to say , here is a typical Satoyama (in Japanese).




Scene of Satoyama




We had a cup of Sencha tea (a kind of green tea) at the  information. Its color was greenish golden and tasted a little bit sweet.




tea leaves



In this season farmers cut tea-trees low so that they can work easily. Those leaves are not processed for tea.

 



Big patchwork


                      
                              


extra appearance from Nara park