Kobe Tea Festival 2017

KOBE TEA FESTIVAL supported by Sir Thomas Lipton was held in Kobe. It was one of the event to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the opening of the Port of Kobe. The city is well-known as tea-lover's city, but surprisingly, it is the first time to host the big tea event. Luckily, the day I went was very warm and lovely day for the season. Unbelievably a lovely day!! Since the advertisement was not that enough, but so many people came in.

I enjoyed the tea tasting set served by Lipton. It was well prepared. They include Assam, Darjeeling, Uva, Nuwara Eliya and Dimbla together with some food to go well with.

Some tea shops from the area and Tokyo had their booths. People can sample and buy if they like. 

I was surprised to see so many people are in line to sample some tea.

Actually, coffee has been much more popular in Japan. Not many people were excited with tea. However, I can feel it is changing. I think tea will be in! As a tea geek, it is exciting!

Overtake Coffee

Japan is a coffee country. People drink coffee a lot rather than green tea and other tea. But I feel that it is changing. 

People are much more talked about tea, especially black tea including Wakocha, and many tea events held in Tokyo area last year. 

Unfortunately, the situation was not the same in Kansai area (including Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto). However, I feel “tea” will be in more even Kansai area too. Early this month, a special event of Wakocha at a renowned department store in Osaka was a big success. The tea shop owner for Wakocha held several mini-seminars a day for three days. All of them were soon fully booked. A guy, who is a cook, came to the event to look for Wakocha for him to serve at his own restaurant. Some came to get more Wakocha since, they said, they got hooked on the tea recently. 

There will be a big black tea event (both abroad and home) in Kobe for the first time at the end of this month. This spring, another tea event is to be held in Osaka. 

The tea is more than “creating a buzz” now. I’m very curious what’s going on the tea market this year. 

Happy New Year 2017

2017 has begun. 

Fortunately, it's been a lovely and mild weather for this season around my area.Many of Japanese were able to see "hatsu hinode", the first sunrise of the year, which is considered auspicious.

On the New Year's Day, people eat "osechi ryori", special meal for New Year's Day on the morning and go to "hatsu mowde", to visit the local shrine to pray for the year. 

New Year is the most important day for Japanese. When the year starts off auspiciously, we feel happy and relieved, and want to believe that it's going to be a good year. 

I really hope 2017 will be a peacefu year.