Sorry belated report, but......
On April 3rd, the Kyoto tea authority
announced hoga sengen (budding announcement).
It was 4 days
earlier than that of the last year. The announcement is annually issued when
about 70% of new buds of “Yabukita” variety (the most common variety to produce
green tea) cultivated at a research institute are grown about twice as big as
the size of leaves which are wrapped the buds. Usually, about one month
after hoga sengen, tea is ready to be plucked.
Actually, after this
announcement, the temperature unseasonably went down for a couple of days. Let’s
see……. Should be fine, I hope!!