The SECRETS of Japanese GREEN TEA: Becoming a Tea Master in Shizuoka

Today I am in Shizuoka Prefecture, not Shizuoka Prefecture, in the middle of a giant green tea field because Shizuoka Prefecture is actually responsible for 40% of Japan's green tea production. There's actually green tea as far as the eye can see and today I'm going to be joining an Eat Meet Japan award-winning tour where I'm actually going to learn about how green tea is made and I even get to try making my very own green tea blend and enjoying it with some delicious Japanese sweets called wagashi. So let's go explore Shizuoka Prefecture and learn about green tea. I have just arrived at Osada Tea Headquarters where they process the green tea that is made here and I'm going to be meeting my guide who's going to teach me all about green tea. I think he's right over there. Hi! Hello, how are you? Good, thanks, how are you? Good, how are you? Nice to meet you, my name is Hiroshi Yamamoto. I work for the Osada Tea Company and I do the exporting Japanese green tea to all over the world. Well, I'm really excited to do the tour today and learn about Japanese tea. Yes, so let's get inside. All right, let's go. Let's go. We are now inside and we've got many kinds of teas in front of me and it smells really fragrant. Today we're gonna try all the teas so we're gonna show you like all the secrets of Japanese green tea and you're gonna be the tea master. Ah, that's so fun! I'm gonna be a tea master! So first, let's look at this tea. This is one of their high grade first flush green tea. First, we're gonna check the shapes and like heavy weight. They feel like pine needles which is so interesting like they're kind of um the ends are a little bit spiky and it's very dry. A little bit on the heavy side. Yeah, the heavy leaf is like high quality leaf. So how do you know it's a good tea? Experience. But like you gotta be tasting all and then you're gonna find like your favorite. You taste it, you see how it looks like and you smell it. It's not always like this tea's high grade and it's tasty for everybody. It's not like that but you have your own taste. That's very fun! I'm excited to make a really good original blend that I like. When you do the tea tasting as like a tea master, you gotta use like really boiled hot water to see the older characteristics of the tea leaves. All right, so now we're gonna try the tea master's way of tasting. So you check the leaf itself, then second you check the colors and like smell it. You know how smells connect to memories? It just brings me back to my grandmother's house when I was a kid and I would drink green tea. It smells like a fresh classic green tea. Here we go. Oh, how did you do that? That's how you do. So you have to sip it really fast? Yeah, like a wine tasting. But it does taste really good. It's surprisingly on the bitter side. It's very fresh tasting but a little bit bitter. I think it's really good and fresh. Okay, next let's try this tea. Okay. And this is fermented tea. Fermented? Yes, we use black koji malt which we use for the sake making. Really? Yeah. It looks really beautiful though. It's a reddish, kind of a reddish tinge to it. Oh, that's so good. It's very comforting and as you mentioned, no bitterness at all. It's really smooth and you can drink every day. So you don't get tired of it? I don't get tired. I'll keep drinking every day. So now you have tasted like a tea master way and you know like what's the difference. So now we're gonna go to their factory to see how we process the final process. Very exciting. I've never seen that before so let's go check it out. Let's go. Wow, it's actually really green in here and it's actually a little bit foggy. Yeah. And basically like Japanese tea final process has two parts. First one is separating the parts. So we want to separate what's the tea, what goes to what. This is like goes to the high grade, this is about the middle grade, this is goes to like a reasonable price. So after finished all the separating the parts and then we're gonna do the final roasting process. This is gonna be like a low steam pan. It's moving around like to not to burn. Wow, so this whole thing heats up. Heats up. And then it's just roasting and spinning. Spinning. So let's do the like smaller size of the roasting machine and do the roasting. Final process we have like our raw material from the farmer and it has like five percent moisture. And then in the final product we're gonna reduce to the three percent moisture and then we do the like roasting process. Before roasted tea you gotta find like see how it changed. Before roasted and after roasted. Okay. So first I'll try the pre-roasted. It's refreshing but there's a pretty strong bitter aftertaste. Yes, I would drink the whole thing. This is very good. Let's try the roasted. This one does taste slightly smokier. Like it's got that roasted kind of smoky quality. It's still very interesting. I love the nuanced changes in the flavor. But now I get to try something really fun. I get to make my own tea blend. Yes, you blend it. My own blend. Original. I'm so excited. Let's go back to the tea room. I think I like teas that are a little bit smoother, easy to drink, not too bitter. Okay. Yeah. So maybe this one is not too bitter. It's smooth. If you like a roasted smell, you can blend it with a roasted brown rice. Okay, I'll try that. And matcha. I love matcha. That's a good idea. Yay, it's finished. So do I give it a name now? Yeah. What do I call it? Should I call it the Shizuka tea? You can do that. I've actually seen green teas that are named after me. So this will be the Shizuka. The Shizuka-cha. So now that I've learned how to make my very own blend of Japanese green tea, now I'm going to make the perfect confectioneries to go with tea. And these are called Nerikiri. And today I'm going to be learning how to make them from my teacher. My name is Kaori Osada. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too. Here's my very own handmade Nerikiri wagashi or Japanese sweets. And now that I've made it, we're going to make our very own matcha green tea to go with it. That's the perfect combination. So we scoop it. And this should be about one scoop, spoonful. So now I'll take one full scoop of hot water. So now that I've done my figure eights, I'm going to quickly kind of scrub it up and down. So mine is not quite as frothy and creamy as hers. Hers actually looks like a matcha latte. It's like really frothy. So it's now time to eat the Nerikiri wagashi that I've just made. That's delicious. Red bean paste is quite on the sweet side, but the white bean paste is actually not that sweet. So it's got a nice balance. It's a very sweet Japanese style dessert. So now let me try the freshly whisked matcha tea. Oh, that's good. It's really smooth. Some matcha is actually very bitter, but this is clearly a higher grade matcha and whisking it makes it a little bit sweeter. It's really magical. I really love it. It's very smooth. Yay! I'm excited to try my very own tea. Let's go. Oh, beautiful. They have so many teas and teapots. Look at all of these matcha tea bowls. They're all so beautiful. I actually really want one. I don't have one at home. Look at this one. Cherry blossoms on the outside and look at the inside. Mount Fuji. All right, now it's the moment we have all been waiting for, especially me, to try my very own tea blend. And this says Tea Master Shizuka on the front. So I really feel like a tea master today. I've learned a lot and made my own blend. So let's give it a try. All right, let's give it a try. My very own Shizuka blend green tea. First, let's give it a little sniff because I'm a tea master. I can really smell the genmaicha, like sweet and nutty and grainy, a little bit popcorn-y. It's a little hard to describe, but it's got that really distinct grain-like smell. Oh, that is so good. I don't think I've ever tried a tea that is as smooth as this. It's got just that perfect hint of creaminess from the matcha. That is so good. I could drink this every morning and I probably will because I get to take it home with me. So good. Well, that concludes my experience here in Shizuka Prefecture today. This was a lot of fun and I learned so much more about tea than I ever could have imagined. I really do feel like a tea master. And I got to see the glimpses into tea making that nobody else really gets to see. This was a really, really fun day. And if you guys enjoyed following me along on this experience, you guys can actually join it too. It's an Eat Meet Japan tour and you can join it by clicking the links down below. So make sure to check that out if you come to Japan. So if you guys enjoyed this video, make sure to give us a like, comment, share, and don't forget to subscribe. And we'll see you guys very soon in another video. Bye guys!