Without my family (they stayed home and went rollerblading), I went to the Green Tea and Local Products Laboratory at the Saitama Prefectural Agricultural and Forestry Research Center for the “Sayama Tea Picking Experience Festa 2007”. A long train ride through Tokyo and beyond, followed by a 20 minute bus ride, left us by the tea fields in Sayama. Making our way to the research center gave us the opportunity to walk through the fields, passing a few workers along the way. Open spaces – what a difference from Tokyo!
Arriving at the center, we set out to taste some green tea treats and then made our way to the fields where we were given a short lesson in tea leaf picking. The top three leaves are the ones to pick for tea, the lower ones are for making tempura. We were given a plastic bag and 20 minutes to pick as much as we could. As an amateur, I watched as the “pros” picked quickly and expertly. I picked, neither quickly or expertly.
When finished, we went inside to one of the barn like structures, where we learned how to dry the leaves we had just picked. First, put them in a cellophane covered dish into the microwave for a minute and a half, then turn them and return them for another 30 seconds. Take them out, roll them in your hand for 5 minutes, then put them in a pan on the stove under a very low heat and dry the surface of the leaves only. Repeat the hand rolling and heat process 6 times and voila! Tea!!.
After purchasing a big bag of tea for 100 yen (while I like the idea of drying my own tea, I know myself well enough to know it is never going to happen), we made our way to another part of the center to learn how to prepare the perfect cup of tea.
Shedding our shoes for a pair of slippers, we made our way to tables where a nice man explained the best way to make tea. The choice of pot, cups and tea determine the best method. The better the tea, the cooler the water. For us, he poured the water in the cups first, to both heat the cups and cool the water slightly. He then measured one level teaspoon of tea for each cup, slightly more or less depending on to taste, and put it in the pot. Pouring the water from each cup back into the pot, he waited about a minute and then slowly and carefully, poured the brewed tea back into each cup, a little at a time, so each cup had the exact same amount of tea in the exact same strength. The last drops of tea were distributed drop by drop into each cup one at a time, as this is the best, most flavorful part. We sat and drank, savoring the slightly sweet taste in our mouths, each of us resolving to be better tea drinkers in the future.
I was fortunate to be there with some very helpful Japanese women who explained everything as we went along because there was no English spoken. It was wonderful to look around seeing the families out for the day. Almost everyone wore a hat in the hot sun. Almost everyone was smiling. Perhaps it was the tea.......
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