More tea picking and visit of a very traditional tea producer

In the morning we help finishing the picking of Yutaka Midori. Haruyo san is steering the harvester with knowledge, sometimes stopping when she sees a weed growing out of the tea field to rip it out. In the back of the harvester there is always two people helping to fill in the tea leaves into the bags. I see a lot of ladybirds, which I try to take out, as they are very helpful friends, which eat the lice.

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For lunch we go to a simple, but good Soba (noodle) Restaurant close by. As in the region there is a lot of tea producers and other farmers, they all come here for a proper meal and gaining strength for the rest of the working day. As it is weekend, the Morimotos have help from their two daughters and ones husband and son. Together they continue to pick Yabukita behind their house. The freshly picked Yabukita have a very intense flowery smell and result in a very delicate Sencha.

We are invited to visit a friend of Shigeru san, who still produces tea in the old fashioned way with machines build by Shigeru sans father. We are very happy to see the relatively small and more simple machines, which produce green tea in the old way. The atmosphere in the relatively small fabric is like we imagine the old times. And we are very much surprised of the fresh and at the same time mild taste of this type of green tea. We start dreaming to hopefully one day to produce a similar tea.

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