Exploring Japan - Hiking & Tea Picking in Wazuka, Kyoto

In my last post I explained a little about the tea town of Wazuka and the reasons why it's such a special place. Not only is the climate perfect for growing tea, the scenery is also dream-like thanks to the patterns on the hillside and the different shades of green.

I was in Wazuka to meet Daiki Tanaka, the founder of a company called d:matcha that owns a few tea farms and a cafe in Wazuka. His shop resides in the centre of town and he took me on a hike towards the summit of one of the mountains in this area. It was a great experience as I was able to get a view of the whole town and also try my hand at tea picking, something I've never done before. When we got back I was able to learn more about the subtleties behind green tea and what makes the taste differ, more of which I will showcase in a future post.

Daiki is very unique as he originally moved here from Tokyo with his younger brother and wife. He has always been interested in agriculture and wanted to make top quality tea and also promote this area of Japan to more people in Japan. So his younger brother studied with the master tea farmers in this area and they founded the shop to coincide with this project.

Green tea has an image in Japan as being 'normal' and a little old fashioned, so most Japanese look to coffee to get a kick throughout the day. As a younger businessman, Daiki is look to change this culture and bring in a fresh generation that can revive this industry, something I really support. Most of the farmers here seemed to be around the age of 60 or older, which will cause problems in the future as they transition to a younger age group that need to tend to the farms. Hopefully I can work with Daiki to bring more people to the town of Wazuka and promote this beautiful place to more foreign visitors of Japan. It's only one hour from Kyoto and is a memorable experience!

Anyway, here are a few photos that I took on my hike up the mountain. I thought the views were some of the most beautiful I have seen. More about the d:matcha project coming very soon. Enjoy.