Tea Picking in Japan: A Teaseller’s Dream

For those who do not know me, and for those who do: I am Nina, and I am about to overshare.

I got married in July of this year to a wonderful human whom I met during my undergraduate degree course. During the course, which included minoring in Japanese, my partner and I had the incredible opportunity to spend our third year studying in Japan. At this point, we had been dating for perhaps three months and decided to live together for a year in a foreign country. Thankfully, it was the right call. Fast-forward to our honeymoon, and we wanted to visit once again to thank the country and the experiences it held which helped unite us all those years ago.

We landed in the thick August heat. Our rusty Japanese language skills came back gradually and, freed of the abashedness of youth, we were paradoxically more conversationally fluent (if less accurate) in our speech. This is an important aspect to keep in mind as the story progresses.

In the planning process, I claimed the entirety of one of our few precious days spent in the Tokyo area. It would be a day to remember, a day of bonding through unique experience, a day of tea picking in Sayama. My husband was not quite as keen as I was, especially when he found out how far into the countryside we would have to travel in the heat for this experience, but thankfully he was on his best behaviour trying to please his new wife, so went along with it anyway.

I have worked at Char for three years now, but my passion for tea traces back to my youth in Ireland, my Granny Margret making me an exceptionally weak, heavily sugared version of what she was drinking. So, to visit somewhere that tea is grown, and to be afforded the privilege of picking tea myself had a touch of ‘someday, if I’m lucky’ to it. Yet here we were, already sweaty, one time misdirected and three thick coatings of SPF-50 into the day, standing in front of what looked to be someone’s back garden. As it turned out, we had taken the scenic route and come in the wrong way, but in doing so, we had explored more of the land that inspired ‘My Neighbour Totoro’, so we didn’t mind a bit.

Are you here for the ochatsumi experience?

A kindly lady asked. It was only at this point that we realised a rookie error: we did not know the word for tea picking in Japanese. We stumbled through what must have been an entertaining calamity of broken Japanese in which we repeated the word ‘tea’, and then mimed picking tea, rolling tea, and drinking tea. It was a masterful piece of off-the-cuff theatre, but seemed to just confuse the lady further. After all, who books something without knowing the word for what they were booking? All self-congratulated progress so far in our language skills seemed dissolved, and we watched with shame as the owners fetched their electronic translator.

Eventually, through further exceptional acting and somewhat less exceptional Japanese, we got to the experience itself. A lovely man talked us through the types of tea they produced at this tea garden (which my pride and university debt would like to assure you I understood without the electronic translator, give or take a few specialised words), after which he asked us what kind of tea we were interested in making. As it turns out, even with a microwave to speed up the process, it would take about 6 hours to make black tea from freshly picked leaves. Another day, perhaps. So, green tea it was – which is quite fitting for Japan which is known for its green tea.

Next, we donned traditional tea picking outfits called cha-musume (literally ‘tea daughter). It was quite effective at keeping the skin at your neck and arms covered from the sun, for which I was particularly grateful. We were given woven baskets to put the leaves in, shown how to select the optimal leaf combination (one large leaf, one small leaf, and one budding leaf for an optimal balance of bitterness and sweetness), and set loose on the tea bushes. I had some concerns at first that I would soon grow tired of the repetitiveness of picking the leaves, but the serenity of being outside and away from the bustle of Tokyo, combined with having a specific task to occupy my body with, put my mind at ease in a way that no other activity could rival. This was an activity which has been undertaken by centuries of people, displaced by geography and time, but united by tea. I was grateful to be amongst their number, if only for half an hour.

The time went very quickly, and my basket was not very full, but we were assured that we had collected enough. I even had some leaves left over, which were used to brew nama-cha (literally ‘raw-tea’): a refreshing and light type of tea which uses just-plucked leaves. We drank this and cold-brewed green and black teas to our heart’s content as we rolled our tea leaves.

In order to speed up the process, we used a microwave on a low setting at 30-second intervals to stop the oxidation of the leaves. Whilst the leaves were warm, we rolled them between our palms. There was an incredibly soothing tactile experience, as we felt our leaves become more dehydrated and brittle. We were told that the more roughly we treated the leaves, the stronger and more bitter the tea would be as a result. My husband is fond of a strong tea, so this was the path he chose. As for me, I prefer a subtle and sweet tea, so I treated my leaves gently. It was absolutely fascinating to see how different our leaves from the same tea plants began to shape as we neared the end of the process (which took perhaps 18–20 microwave trips each).

After this meditative practice of hand-rolling our tea, we stopped for a light lunch of deep fried tea leaves dipped in tea and salt. The sudden extreme heat from the batter turned the raw tea leaves rather sweet, and tea and salt was a surprising hit with us both as well. Whilst we ate and chatted in the shade, we realised we would have to name our tea creations. Given that Sayama was the setting of ‘My Neighbour Totoro’ (Tonari no Totoro in Japanese), my husband named his caffeinated creation Tonari no Ocha (My Neighbour Tea). As for myself, I was inspired by some sweet birds that kept playing and pecking at the ground nearby, and so I called mine Tori no Uta (The Bird’s Song). We took our teas home to England, and are now drinking them sparingly so that we can elongate our tea picking experience and bring its peace and tranquillity into our married life.