As you may know, the bottled tea is very
popular here, but Japanese people don’t make tea at home as much as we used to.
If not tea geek, people don’t drink green tea a lot.
On the other hand, I’ve known (of) some
“non-Japanese” who love Japanese tea and work as an expert in Japan. They
include people who manages an internet tea company, who work at the Japanese
tea organization, and who work as a master of Sado(Japanese traditional tea
ceremony). In addition to their deep knowledge and their love about tea, their
Japanese (language-ability wise) are amazing! Once in a while I feel that they
know more Japanese words than I do. There are more non-Japanese who involved in
Japanese tea field although I haven’t met them yet.
Recently, we sometime see
the very interesting scene here and there. Japanese people attend the seminar
or the lesson about Japanese tea hosted by a non-Japanese teacher. While
listening about Japanese tea told by non-Japanese teacher and tasting some
Japanese tea made by non-Japanese instructor, Japanese people are impressed by
the taste, and surprised to know the taste of tea can be changed according to
the brewing way. Actually, I’ve attended Sado class hosted by a Canadian tea
master, and I learned a lot.
I sometimes find interest in knowing
about Japanese tea from their perspective. But at the same time, I feel like
“What are we doing ???????!!!!!!!. We are born and bred Japanese, but we don’t
know about it.” I have to admit that
many of us, including me, tend to feel the attraction of foreign cultures as
the saying goes, “The grass is always greener.” I don’t think this is bad because knowing foreign cultures can be a good
chance to think about our own culture. It should be....
Anyway. it is very happy to see that Japanese tea have come to attract
the world, which we never dreamt of it.
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| frm Soft Kenkyusha |
