Tag Archives: Japan

What Diversity in Tea Means to Your Next Cup – Japanese Green Tea Cultivars

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As we have discussed before, tea originates from the Camellia Sinensis plant.  However, just as the leaf size of tea grown in China vary dramatically different from that grown in India, so too does the varieties, or tea cultivars grown in Japan differ.  As the tea plant has traveled the globe, countries have invested in the tea industry, developing many different tea cultivars more suited for their part of the world.  Tea cultivars are the cultivated variety of a tea plant selected and breed by humans for a very specific set of characteristics like flavor, resistance to pest or diseases, and speed of growth.  What that tea cultivar was created for directly impacts the flavor of the final tea product.  So why care about these tea cultivars, so long as I get a good cup of teas?

As climate change alters the behavior of the jet stream and therefore our weather patterns, it will affect the quality and quantity of tea being produced.  Countries around the global are busy trying to breed a tea plant that can handle longer spells of drought, cold, rain and other weather pattern changes so as to minimize its effects on tea production.  So how do these researchers balance the need for a more hearty plant with keeping its signature flavor?

Rows of Trimmed Tea Plants - Tea Cultivars

Tea Plantation Kirishima, By Akuppa John Wigha, CC By 2.0

Over Fifty Tea Cultivars in Japan

Japan, offers an excellent case study of the impact of cultivar diversity in the tea industry.  Since the 1970’s, when Japan mechanized its tea harvesting in response for more demand for tea and less labor to harvest it, the country has been a study in both the positive and negative impacts of cultivar development and selection.  There are currently fifty-two tea cultivars registered with the country that are part of the commercial tea industry, but that was not always the case.  In the 1970’s, the Yabukita cultivar was selected as the best tea cultivar for mechanized harvesting while keeping the flavor that was expected in Sencha tea.  Yabukita became the tea plant of choice and rose to be almost 75% of all tea plants used for commercial production (Chika Yagi, 2010).

Having a nearly mono-culture tea industry created two very big problems for Japan.  First, there were frequent outbreaks of grey blight and pest infestations that would practically wipe out a single season’s harvest.  Then, in years when the crop could be harvested it caused price fluctuations in tea because the entire tea harvest occurred at the same time, glutting the market and dropping prices.  The National Institute of Tea Science quickly caught onto these problems and, in the 1980’s, began the development of more tea cultivars with different harvest periods and better pest and disease resistance.

Tea Cultivars Plus Standardized Cupping Methodology

In breeding more tea cultivars, Japan developed a regimented harvesting and simple tasting procedure to ensure flavor was not lost while breeding for other traits.  Their steps go so far as to dictate time of day of harvest, number of leaves to harvest, drying time and then cupping instructions.  They even require the tasting bench to be placed near a window with diffused morning sunlight to help standardize the evaluation of the color of the dried leaves and brewed liquor during cupping.  This attention to the small details around testing for the final product of cultivar allowed the Japanese tea industry to introduce more cultivars with extended harvesting periods, disease and pest tolerance, without losing flavor (Chika Yagi, 2010).

It gives me great hope that as other countries like India and Kenya start their own cultivation of new varieties in response to climate change that they can turn to Japan as a model to follow.  Do you see the cultivar that makes your favorite Japanese green tea below?

Five of the Most Widely Used Tea Cultivars in Japan
Tea Cultivar Name: Yabukita Okuhikari Okumidori Saemidori Yutakamidori
Spring Harvest Time: April to mid-May 5 to 6 days later than Yabukita Later than Yabukita Earlier than Yabukita 5 days earlier than Yubakita
Cold Resistance: High High High Low Medium-High
Pest and Disease Resistance: Susceptible to anthracnose Resistant to anthracnose Slightly susceptible to anthracnose Resistant to anthracnose High Resistance to anthracnose
Main Type of Green Created from Cultivar: Sencha Sencha/Bancha (higher yielding than Yabukita) Tencha Matcha Gyokuro

Works Cited
Chika Yagi, N. I. (2010, August). Characteristics of Eight Japanese Tea Cultivars. Honolulu: College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Tea Harvesting

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Woman Plucking Tea in Assam India

Tea Plucker in Assam by Diganta Talukdar CC-BY-2.0

For centuries the only way to harvest tea leaves was to hand pluck them, and in many countries that is still the primary means of harvest.  This may be intentional or may be due to the lack of capital necessary to purchase the equipment.  For those farms who chose to use modern agricultural equipment there are multiple options from which to choose that can be implemented at various points in the harvesting season.  For example, in Japan, some farmers choose to hand pluck the first flush of a season and use mechanical means for subsequent harvests.

Tea does have a harvesting season, though the length and number of flushes varies widely. In China it is typically in the spring and fall. As mentioned in our earlier blog Camellia Sinensis, season is effected by water, location and temperature.  During a harvesting season the tea is usually picked once every week to two weeks.  In places where harvesting can occur year round, during the peak season, the tea can be picked multiple times during a week.

As you can imagine plucking tea by hand is very labor intensive work where typically, the bud and first two leaves are plucked.  In regions of China, on top of plucking the tea leaves, the pluckers are hiking up and down mountainous terrain to get to the leaves.  In some of the oldest farms, the pluckers are also climbing into the old ungroomed tea trees to pluck.   Pluckers will carry some kind of means to collect leaves as they pluck, often a bag or bamboo basket.  They will add leaves as they pluck and when full they carry their harvest back to the farm before returning to the fields to keep plucking.  In many countries women make up the predominant portion of the plucking workforce.  In China, this is driven by the belief that women have just the right touch in plucking leaves, not leaving the tea tree brushed or damaged at the breaking point.  This is extremely important for future harvests, because the tea tree will not continue to produce leaves on a branch where it is bruised or damaged.

Tea Harvesting by Machine in Japan

Tea Harvesting by Machine by Oli Studholme CC-BY-2.0

Knowing that the tea tree is sensitive to where the plucking occurs, it is hard to imagine how big farm trackers or automatic pruners could to the same job.  However, the Japanese have implemented laser technology to allow their automatic pruning machines to be hand-pulled over the tea trees with cuttings sucked into either bags or shoots that go back to the main staging area for the plucked tea.  This laser guidance allows the pruners to cut at just the right place and angle so the tree continues to grow from the same branch.  Since oxidation begins immediately after harvest it is critical, especially for green tea, to start the manufacturing process as soon as possible and this system allows much faster transport of leaves to processing facilities.  I imagine that other countries, like Sri Lanka, which are experiencing labor shortages on their tea farms as younger generations leave the farm for jobs in the cities, will eventually turn to this technology to allow harvesting to continue.

While many countries still utilize substantial labor to harvest tea, Argentina plantations almost exclusively use large elevated tractors that drive above the tea trees to harvest tea leaves.  Machine harvested leaves don’t usually have the bud and two leaf combination but individual leaves instead, some with and some without stems.  Given that the plantations in Argentina are able to harvest year round, it is not a surprise that they use equipment.

Mechanically harvested tea is not always destined to tea bags.  Quality loose leaf tea can be harvested by machine, you will just not see a bud and two leaves in the tea.  Instead you will find single leaves and buds and in some cases no stems on the leaves with an almost perfectly straight edge at the base of the leaf.  As for whether plucking by hand or machine effects the quality of the end product, it is hard to imagine that it does.  Of course, I am just an American that is accustomed to John Deere tractors harvesting everything from oranges to wheat, so why not tea?

by Hillary Coley

Follow me on Twitter @HillaryColey or @DominionTea