I’ve talked about Wakocha (Japanese black tea) a lot on my blog, so you may know Wakocha is the recent trend in Japan.
Still, it is not widely well-known enough even among Japanese. In order to promote Wakocha, an event was held last week in Iruma city. A lot of tea farmers, the tea promoter, and the shopkeepers and the tea-lovers gathered together. I joined it as a consumer. We tasted various types of the teas, discussed how we should improve the quality, and learned how we should promote them more widely.
Now, at least 300 kinds of Wakocha are produced. I am not saying all are good, but the quality overall is getting better for sure.
Japan used to produce black tea a long time ago just for exportation, but the business failed. I assume it is because Japanese tried just to copy “black tea” such as Darjeering, Uva and Assam only for business. However, needless to say, the condition in Japan like the soil and tea variety is different from that in India, Sri Lanka etc. Of course, the business ended in failure then.
Now, people are aiming to make “Japanese-flavor” black tea in order to enjoy and stimulate our tea business. In earnest!
