Global Japanese Tea Association, with Simona Suzuki

Ryan · 0:06

Hello and welcome to the Specialty Matcha Podcast. My name is Ryan. This is Zongjun Li, who also goes by Sam. Hello. And we're the cofounders of Sanko Matcha Products. Yeah, we launched this podcast to discuss our learning journey, Matcha, share startup stories and interview experts.

Ryan · 0:20

And this episode we have Simona Suzuki from Global Japanese Tea Association. Welcome, Simona. Hi. Hi. Thank you for having me. So happy to have you and I'm so happy that the Global Japanese Tea Association exists. It has been like a go to resource since the very beginning and all of the conferences and all the English language content and the community, it's really so happy to have you on it. So you guys were a dream guest for a long time. Yes.

Zongjun · 0:47

Indeed, happy we found the time to do it together and thank you so much also for being part of it. It's great to have you and I'm very, very happy to hear such positive words and yeah, such positive feedback. So thanks a lot. Yeah, thank you.

Ryan · 1:01

And thank you for all the people I've gotten to meet meet to the association too. Actually, just the other day I met someone in France because I live in, I'm based in Paris. And through the association, we connected, we sat down over bowl of matcha and three hours later we're still talking.

Zongjun · 1:16

So it was, you know, it's a, it's a great way to find like like minded tea people. That's the music to our ears. You know, it's all we want to do to connect people through tea and, and to help this community grow and, you know, help support each other and, and build new projects together.

Simona · 1:33

So amazing, I'm happy. Thank you so much. We'd love to learn more about how did the Global Japanese Tea Association start, because you're one of the founders. We'd love to learn about the origin story. And also maybe a little bit background information about yourself too. Simona up to you and get involved in the first place. All right, well, so about myself, so I come from Europe, also from a small country, Lithuania, and I got involved in tea since, let's see, I think 2013. He was always kind of in my background. In my family, we used to drink tea, but back then we didn't have a good choice.

Simona · 2:13

It was just a black tea bag, you know, But it kind of was always in the background. And for a while, I didn't pay much attention to it. But after finishing studies and starting to work, it kind of started to pop up a little bit in the front. And I realized that this is something I've been interested in and I would like to explore more. And during university years, I also made some Japanese friends who brought some Japanese teas, you know, to share with with friends in a circle.

Simona · 2:44

So, yeah, I got kind of intrigued by Japanese tea at that point and wanted to learn more. And, you know, I came to Japan in 2013 for that purpose, for learning about tea, basically interning on a tea farm. You may have heard of Obubu tea. That was my start, yeah.

Simona · 3:06

And yeah, they invited me to stay on work after that, which was not expected. I thought I was just coming for like a three months journey, learning and going back. But yeah, they offered me to stay and I worked there for quite a while, for eight or nine years looking after the international side. Yeah.

Simona · 3:26

So that was also very much a learning journey and kind of getting to understand the tea industry, the tea world and also the challenges that were already present at that time and done with how disconnect the Global Japanese Tea Association is that with the like minded people. Actually we all connected at Obubu. So one of the Co founders of Obubu, Matsu, is also our Co founder for the Global Japanese Tea Association, the ME and then another team member Anna, who also was an intern at Obubu for a little while.

Simona · 4:02

So the three of us, we kind of started talking about the challenges and the situation with tea in Japan maybe since like 2015, 2016. So those ideas were already starting to brew, but we didn't have like a concrete path or what exactly we should do. And having spent time in Japan, but also our team was travelling around the world to hold workshops and events. We were observing what was happening in different countries.

Simona · 4:29

So a lot in Europe, but the other team members have been to other parts of the world too. And we kind of noticed this mismatch with what was happening in Japan, how like the demand was going down and people were kind of turning away from tea, seeing it as old fashioned and those kind of things.

Simona · 4:47

And then going outside of Japan and really seeing the opposite, how people are curious and interested and they want to learn more or they want to try they're, yeah, curious to try different kinds of these. And we just saw like something has to be done with this mismatch to connect the two sides and, and to help, you know, each other for building these kind of bridges. So those were the early ideas we started working on, and then the association got finally established in 2019. So yeah, it took a little bit of the thought process and like trial and error to find the path forward. But here we are now six years

Simona · 5:27

later, still working on it, but having already this beautiful tea community and a lot of support from our members, our students and and everyone around that, it's great to see like a developing and kind of blossoming to where it is now.

Ryan · 5:43

Wow. So interesting it all sort of was started and incubated at Obubu. It didn't fully realize that or sort of by Obubu alumni like but through this network and and the exposure, there's some like serious magic in the air at Obubu.

Ryan · 5:58

Sam and I were there a couple months ago and just, it feels like the cultural exchange that happens there is like so different than anywhere else we've ever seen actually in any tea. I mean, we've been to tea in sort like tea trips in Taiwan and mainland China and Korea, but we've never seen anything like what's going on in Obubu or in the rest of Japan for that matter.

Zongjun · 6:24

Yeah, Wonderland, right? Yeah. Pretty interesting. It's almost like kind of like New York or California like tech startup type of vibe, you know, super cool. We found it very complicated. But we got to, we got to spend quite a bit of time there and chitchat and it's really cool. Just all of the vibes and some of the people there listen to the podcast.

Ryan · 6:46

So it was, I don't know, it felt like everyone sort of half knew each other because we've been kind of observing what's going on from afar to just even through like Instagram. Yeah, and then you get the feeling already.

Ryan · 6:58

But visiting and meeting everyone, Yeah, you'll see it with your own eyes. There's a real vibe in the air because like both Zhongjun and I worked at a startup and it was a sort of a very scrappy early days startup, like 5-6, seven years ago. And at one point, like we just didn't make enough money. We all had to live together.

Ryan · 7:16

So we had this sort of Co living, Co working situation and like there was kind of the there's a magic, communal magic in the air in those environments and you don't feel it that often. But like even with that group there, you could feel it like all the interns are living together. They were just about to go to tea class, like after their work, like talk about like commitment and then like everyone upstairs.

Ryan · 7:41

I don't know it's it was so. Cool, you're locked in and just extra benefit that there's tea all around. In a unique environment. So when you started to sort of formulate what the Global Japanese Tea Association is now, how did you decide, like, what the mission and vision would be, but also like, what to do and what not to do?

Ryan · 8:03

Because like, our experience, like starting things sexually, what not to do is like maybe even more difficult than deciding what to do. So how did the Global Japanese Tea Association form in its early days? Well, you know, I have to say it was trial and error.

Simona · 8:18

So talking about the mission, as I said, our idea was really to try to connect people and community is very, very big aspect of it. And by now we have like 3 core pillars that we try to focus on. So the community building, education and information sharing.

Simona · 8:35

Because of course if people can speak Japanese, it's much more accessible. But beyond that, with the language barrier, it can be much more challenging and tricky to find like real and trustworthy information about Japanese tea.

Simona · 8:49

So we kind of lined out these as our pillars on which we want wanted to base our activities. And the mission itself is really basically to expand the Japanese tea world through global collaboration. So connecting people in Japan and connecting people abroad. And that was, I would say, more or less from the start, but it definitely was a learning experience, especially thinking that we started in 2019 and then 2020, everything crashed. Yeah.

Simona · 9:19

So we had a lot of things we wanted to do from the start, especially focusing on education and giving people a chance to learn and to understand Japanese tea. And we envisioned holding, like, classes in different parts of the world, in different countries and cities, and then suddenly everything shuts down. So that really almost tripped us up. But we stumbled onto the online option, online method. And yeah, that was kind of not our primary idea and not primary goal because T is best when it's shared on when we are together. But when we couldn't do that, the online became our go to alternative.

Simona · 10:00

And actually it worked better than we expected or we imagined. And by now we also have like a large group of students that have completed our classes by joining it online. And yeah, some of them later come to meet us and tell us that they also didn't expect the online to work, but it somehow eventually did. So there was a lot of learning to do as a new organization. Of course we don't know everything before we start, but also because we found ourselves in that kind of situation in the world where things were like out of normal and where we had to really adapt and, and try new things. But yeah, I guess in the end we

Simona · 10:40

are grateful for it because we learned, you know, different ways and and we were able to connect with probably more people than we would have been otherwise. So yeah, it's challenging, but we try to adapt and we try to go forward as much as as we can. That's awesome and it's working.

Ryan · 10:59

It's like it's, it's like even the community like online in that space, it's really special just to have a place for everyone at the industry to connect. And any listeners who are are not part of the community should highly consider joining. And there's a great circle group and always some interesting discussions.

Ryan · 11:16

Yeah. What's the usual cadence for this type of, you know, lectures or meetings? Like do you send out team that dance and people like drink the same tea over the camera? Yeah. So at the moment we have now both versions.

Simona · 11:31

We do it both in person and actually in 10 countries around the world, students can join in person classes with our teachers, but those who are maybe a little bit further away or maybe it's not easy in terms of like schedule or timing on those kind of things. Then we have the online as well that started during the pandemic, but it it carried on.

Simona · 11:53

And in those cases, we basically have a set that students would receive. So it's like a set of T Ware and a set of T and we are bringing together, we are explaining it different topics along with it, but we are also trying to use together. That's very, very big aspect of our approach to education. It's not just kind of listening passively, but it's really engaging with tea to understand the teas, to understand how to make them, how to store them, and also understand them a bit more broadly where they come from, what are the regional differences, what are maybe some lesser known teas as we are advancing for the levels of the

Simona · 12:34

courses. Yeah, so, so basically making and drinking tea is a very big part of it and we make sure that everyone has it. That's. Awesome. What's it been like managing both sides of the community? Because you have the international base, which are tea educator brand owners, people who just love Japanese tea.

Zongjun · 12:55

It's like a big mix. And then there's the farmer side of that. What's it like? Because I'm sure it's very different, like cultivation, community cultivation styles between these two sides. Yeah, definitely. Well, as I said, we try, we want to and we try to involve everyone related to tea.

Simona · 13:14

And we are also not limiting even to tea professionals. We are very much open to, you know, tea lovers, enthusiasts, because it all can start from just One Cup of tea and we never know where it will take up. So we try to engage everyone as much as possible and to create the space where we can interact and learn from each other. And here in Japan also, we try to grow the community as well. So perhaps the more active members are the ones that can speak the different languages.

Simona · 13:46

Communicating in English is much easier with everyone from abroad being so active, but we try to involve the tea farmers, tea producers as much as possible. We have had quite a few projects over the years to try to put spotlight on them and to highlight their hard work that they are doing for us to enjoy the teas. So I don't know if you already followed us back then, but in 2000, 21, we had a Japanese tea marathon, which was a project kind of aligned with Tokyo Olympics. And it was, well, a bit of a virtual marathon. We were not actually running, but we covered 15 tea producing prefectures during the time of

Simona · 14:30

the Olympics. So we tried to steal a little bit of the viewership from the sports fans and turn them into tea fans. And every day we invited tea producers from each of those tea regions producing prefectures to introduce about their region, their town, their own history, the teas they produce. So we held it in a live event format where people could join us from anywhere.

Simona · 14:59

And we had two, 300 people joining these live events each day. Yeah. And yeah, we really wanted to kind of highlight the regionality of tea, the variety of tea, and also of the people that are doing this work that are making the teas for all of us. So that was one of the projects.

Simona · 15:18

But over the years we had quite a few others where we really try to involve the tea producers and and kind of show, you know, the faces behind the teas as much as possible. Interesting. What, what was the, I guess motivation of these tea farmers joining, you know, this kind of talk, like are they just happy to share their, you know, tea or to everybody or like do they want to also network and be connected with the outside market?

Simona · 15:47

Like what's like some of the common motivations? Probably both things or even. Yeah, a little bit of curiosity, what is this new thing, you know, that no one heard about and like, what are we actually doing? This online event, You know, back in 2021, it was just the beginning of all Zoom and all of these other online tools.

Simona · 16:09

So I think there was a bit of curiosity, what are we doing and what is this going to be like? But also I think they were curious to see, you know, because a lot of the people that joined were from outside of Japan. We had some participants in Japan, but it was more international audience. So to understand like what the international audience might be interested in and to get a little bit of feedback as well from them.

Simona · 16:34

We couldn't send the key to every single person that joined the online events, but we were able to create 200 sets that we sent to those who signed up first, so people could actually taste the tea along the conversation, along the event.

Simona · 16:50

Yeah, So the tea producers, they could get very much real feedback right away. From. You know, 300 people drinking their teas at the same time. So I think that was also part of the motivation as well. And later on, we were super happy to hear that those people who joined the events, they were then coming back to Japan maybe a couple of years later and connecting with our producers and some of them even becoming customers and buying the tea.

Simona · 17:22

So it had a bit maybe longer lasting and bigger effect than we probably envisioned from the very beginning. Instead of or on top of having a fun event to enjoy and to learn about tea eventually then it created some meaningful relationships and even some business connections out of it.

Zongjun · 17:41

Yeah. Very cool, like I wasn't aware that of its existence at the time, but it is legendary. I've had, I've heard several tea brand owners and matcha founders talk about this marathon. OK. So that's it's had a pretty large effect.

Simona · 17:56

Sometimes it's still ripples and we are surprised to see some people have saved the tea up till now. Sometimes they send this picture is not like, oh we still have, you know, one package remaining or something. Very, Yeah, it's very interesting.

Ryan · 18:10

How difficult is it to find like independent farmers? Because like, we're trying to source tencha at the moment and we're learning more and more about the supply chain in the industry. And it's LED us to the realization like, like it's really rare to find someone that like manages plants that are in the earth all the way through something you sell to a consumer.

Ryan · 18:33

And like like this sort of oh, Boo Boo business model or like some of the very vertically integrated farmers is, is super uncommon. So how do you, how, how does the association engage to with farmers that might just be in a very like narrow segment? Or is it more with the independent farmers that have more control over the process?

Simona · 18:55

Yeah, so, well, I think especially now it's even more tricky, right, Without matcha boom and all the things that have happened in the past year, but even before that, that is actually true that yeah, the farmers that are able to do everything themselves in house are quite rare.

Simona · 19:13

And and there is even a term for it in Japanese that describes that kind of style where you do everything yourself. So Jien means farming by yourself, Jisei means processing by yourself, and then Jihan means selling by yourself.

Simona · 19:29

So there is a term for it. But in the end, the farmers that are able to do all of it themselves are still quite rare. And I think that can be explained looking how the industry works in Japan that usually tea farmers even now are small family units having like a small plot of land and and farming within the family. It's most often so could be two people, husband and wife, or maybe 2 generations parents and kids family. And with that, their focus is usually on the. Production itself, so farm work and if they have their own factory, processing in the factory. But when you think about selling tea yourself, that includes quite the range of other things

Simona · 20:15

that would be necessary, like, you know, having some additional skills like maybe building a website or marketing. Like how do you spread the word about your tea and operations? Yeah, actually being able to send it. And this is still within Japan. It's still a bit of a challenge.

Simona · 20:36

But if you think internationally, that's another layer, which is international regulations and language barriers and all of these things. So for small family units, that's definitely not easy to do. And the farms that tend to be able to do this better are normally a little bit larger.

Simona · 20:54

So that have. Yeah, larger production and often also a little bit of employed workforce. So part of the team that is dedicated to to those tasks specifically. But The thing is that with the challenges in the industry, like we talked to, you know, the decreasing demand and those kind of things, a lot more of these small farmers, they are getting more interested to do it themselves, take a bit more ownership, a bit more control over it, but it's still a challenge.

Simona · 21:26

How do you sell it? Like do you do that online or do you create some direct relationships and then figuring out all the operations and all of that side? So it is still rare when we talk with, for example, auctions in Japan that have the data and information about the tea sales.

Simona · 21:44

We've heard that in Kyoto area, probably about 70% is still sold through the traditional system and maybe about 30% would be direct. Yeah, but that includes also working directly with wholesalers, not, you know, not only having the online shop and less, yeah, it's much, much less when you think about direct retail or or even international sales. Yeah, that's even even less.

Ryan · 22:16

Well, when are you seeing farmers trying to get more vertically integrated? How do they usually do it? Do they bundle together to form some sort of some sort of a cooperative or do they get like subsidy from the government?

Simona · 22:33

Yeah, yeah. There are a few different ways to actually both of these and and more than that. So some may be looking for like support from the government, like there are some programs that can encourage certain ways. For example, now there is a lot of talking about matcha boom and matcha demand support and more of the switch from like sencha to producing tencha and and those kind of things. A couple of years back, the big conversation was also focusing more on export and organic tea.

Simona · 23:09

So there were programs for producing, you know, are switching towards organic production. So there are various like government programs to support it, those kind of initiatives. And then on top of it, of course some are looking for their own ways and maybe they are getting like some personal support from volunteers.

Simona · 23:29

Like some farms might be open to domestic or international volunteers who might have that kind of experience or, or can help with like overcoming language barriers and and those kind of things. So yeah, involving people maybe outside of the industry as volunteers or later on even inviting them as staff members to help handle that side as well. So whatever is whatever is available, whatever is close by, I think everyone is trying to grab on any straw that's available.

Ryan · 24:00

Interesting. Yeah, it. Is interesting if we talk about like before the matcha boom, like what were some one of the worries of the industry like? Well, from especially from a sustainability perspective. Like I remember hearing a lot about farmers getting very old and you know, they don't have a succession plan for their farms.

Simona · 24:20

But what were some of the other concerns like, you know, actually around the Global Japanese Tea Association? So quite a few, quite a few challenges, quite a few difficulties. And that all I think starts with like the decreasing demand for tea.

Simona · 24:35

You know how younger generations are kind of shifting away and I think everything else we observe is a kind of after effect. So yeah, the decreasing demand means that people are willing to pay less for tea. The price is falling.

Simona · 24:50

So that means also less incentive for the farmers for farming right now to continue and also for the younger generations to take up the tea business because tea used to be very much a family business, pass it from one generation to another. But when you don't see like exciting future or like positive future in tea, that's much less encouraging to step into and to take over family business.

Simona · 25:18

Like you said, exactly that leads to the aging tea farmer population and struggles with succession. But on top of it, of course, in more recent years, there are other challenges like increasing costs for tea production, like getting even the materials you need to farm fertilizers and other things. The costs rose quite a lot in the past few years, possibly connected a little bit with the war in Europe and yeah, kind of ripples across the whole world from there as well. So like fuel costs, material costs, like those kind of things are increasing while the price for tea is decreasing and demand is.

Simona · 26:00

Decreasing, yeah. So, so yeah, quite a big squeeze happening there. And then if I keep on going, because the list is quite one labor shortages, right. So, so the helpers, finding helpers on the farm like seasonal workers, those kind of things are also not that easy to do. Yeah.

Simona · 26:24

So many things compound and all together it's quite a bit of a challenge in the tea industry that possibly the last year was the only time with this matcha boom, with this matcha crease, where things started to seem like they're shifting in a different direction, not down the slope, but maybe we see something else upwards. But I guess the shortage issue is just going to be intensified by all of these new demands.

Ryan · 26:52

And it's interesting how like all of these demands are basically driven by matcha or tencha and people, if they want to move away from all of these challenges, they have to shift to tencha production because it's more lucrative.

Ryan · 27:08

Like have you seen this whole shift hurting like other loose leaf tea productions and how how do people think about? It Yeah. So this matcha bloom of the past year is a very unexpected and unseen situation. But that has taken over the tea industry.

Simona · 27:27

So I think people are still a little bit puzzled and sometimes not quite sure how to react. And there is definitely a shift from loose leaf tea towards the other tea, matcha production. We could see that and and like the statistics of the auctions and the tea sales of this year. And in a way I think it's a kind of two sided coin. So on one side, of course, it's finally good to see that there is a demand, there is interest and maybe it can somehow uplift the industry.

Simona · 28:00

But of course, there is the other side of the coin that some part of it suffers switching away from like loose leaf teas. The production of those teas have decreased quite a bit already this year. And yeah, we will see what happens in the coming years if if this is short lived or if this is a kind of longer trend as well.

Ryan · 28:23

Yeah, it's very disturbing here what's going on because even the other day, just like very anecdotally, I heard of a great farmer in somewhere in Kagoshima, forget where. That's like like proclaimed that like they do a bunch of gyokuro that like everyone loves and they're like just totally switching to tencha. Like that's like pretty active culture destruction because of the matcha boom.

Ryan · 28:47

It's like these dynamic, I guess with any change you have winners and losers because it's just the nature of change. But it's still it's almost worrying to see what's going on because like there is this shift to try to adapt to the demand, but that has to come with the expense of something.

Ryan · 29:04

And then what do you, what's the position within Japan about other countries, particularly like places like South Korea and China to help like kind of alleviate some of the pressure on the system, especially at like the latte grade end of the market where you do you start to see higher and higher quality being produced outside of Japan's borders?

Simona · 29:26

Is it a threats? Is it a good thing? I'm sure there's mixed opinions too, but we'd love to learn sort of a perspective that you have on that. I think depends who you ask and it's definitely a mixed bag for sure. And I think the quality is one of the big questions because if the same name is used right, matcha, but the quality is all over the place, then it lowers the expectation or creates a kind of worse expectation from the consumer side outside of Japan.

Simona · 29:57

So that can still be worrying, even if it has been, I think, improving over the years. But it's probably still not exactly the same, comparing Japanese matcha to, well, the tea that carries the same name, matcha, produced in other countries. But on the other hand, it is true that Japan itself cannot really cope with the demand that we have seen around the world because the production of matcha is still quite small within Japan statistics maybe is like about one or two years back, but the production was just about 6% of total Japanese tea production.

Simona · 30:31

Yeah, one or two years back. So you can see that the quantity that Japan can make of matcha is not that high compared to the demand. And even if people are switching in the last year and probably from here on a little more as well, that's still not enough to answer all the requests for.

Simona · 30:51

Sorry, might have used for late. So we have heard from some producers or some factory owners saying that they are actually appreciative that there are other options because they cannot already answer to the existing customers all the time and often cannot take new customers as well because of this limited stock that they have and limited production that Japan has. So I think it's kind of inevitable, but it's yeah, a two sided coin as well, yeah.

Ryan · 31:20

The boom is really crazy. We were at some of the Chinese matcha tencha production facility talking to themselves and even they are not taking new customers. Oh wow OK so even though they are getting over 1. Yeah, yeah. And in Korea too, we were in South Korea and Korea and the Hadong area visiting a tencha factory there. And they're also like have experiencing it just pretty crazy demand.

Ryan · 31:47

You know, I'd say the, the quality on average outside of Japan is much lower if you look at average quality. But definitely we found some things that objectively taste pretty good, which leads to some very interesting dynamics.

Ryan · 32:01

We've also noticed a lot of Japanese investment and like people are, we've heard this both from Japanese tea farmers or people who work in the industry in Japan, but also on the Chinese side about the level of Japanese involvement.

Ryan · 32:14

So even in, you know, there's some cold capitalist way to put it would be there's money to be made for the Japanese tea industry, you know, helping these people. Like we've heard that like a lot of the tea equipment manufacturing companies are making a lot of money setting up tencha and sencha factories abroad and probably all of these consulting fees or co ownership. So maybe it does help like infuse money into an industry that desperately needs it to to be able to grow and to make even more investments in Japan, but but elsewhere. It's it's very interesting and fascinating to see. Like we said before, it's

Ryan · 32:50

something very new, very unexpected, and people are just trying to find the best ways forward. And yeah, some of these things are maybe a little bit surprising to hear, but thinking of the capitalist world, maybe only natural. True.

Ryan · 33:07

We've been thinking a lot about this too, because we're hearing a lot of perspectives that it's destroying Japanese tea culture, and I'm curious to get your perspective. Like, I think especially the Global Japanese Tea Association, from everything I've seen, you've guys done a really good and interesting job managing the tension between spreading Japanese tea culture abroad while leaving a lot of space for it to breathe. Like, I, I love all of your educational materials. You're not like, this is the right way. This is the wrong way.

Ryan · 33:37

Like, it's very, like, here's the context. You decide for yourself. But like, where does Japanese tea culture stop and start? And to what degree can, you know, people like us who are outside of the Japanese system engage in it and but then also kind of make it our own?

Simona · 33:54

Yeah. I think it's it's very important question and of course there are two sides, right, the tradition and the innovation. And I personally think and also as the association we agree on that as well that both are very much important. So we do want to preserve the culture. We want to understand how tea developed and we want to appreciate what has come to us from like centuries ago. But we also understand that we live in a changing world and we want to welcome new ideas and we want to welcome like innovative projects as well.

Simona · 34:28

So it is very much balancing between the two sides. But yeah, trying to preserve the culture as it is and also opening it to a new ideas and and new projects. And we have had some projects in in that sense as well. So a couple of years back we had a project called Japanese Tea Innovators, where we tried to highlight 30 people who are doing some like interesting, unique, maybe slightly different things around Japanese tea. And to show that Japanese tea is not old fashioned, is not something to be left behind.

Simona · 35:04

But it can be also interesting and exciting and new and fresh and to see it and find a new eyes. So yeah, I think we we want to appreciate the past, but we also want to adapt to the current situation, to the current times.

Simona · 35:19

Because even if we look historically, you know, the teas we have now like sencha, gyokuro, they were not there like 1000 years ago. So it was like a development gradually through time. What we think of traditional and historic now was something new and innovative back in the day.

Simona · 35:38

So yeah, I think we just have to have our mind open and yeah, accept new ideas and and try to welcome new ideas. Yeah, yesterday's innovation is today's tradition. It's yeah, exactly. Oh, I would love to learn more about some of these innovations. Can you share some like innovations that got you excited?

Simona · 35:59

Oh yeah. Well it basically was a very, very broad range of things. We included because we wanted to show the kind of the multi phase of Japanese tea from cultivation, from production all the way to the culture and and those kind of things. So there's 30 projects that we highlighted, but to mention a few, one of them would maybe we have to have like a few separate sessions.

Simona · 36:29

But yeah, some of the interesting things would be for example, trying to grow tea in Hokkaido, which is the most northern northern islands typically. And in common sense, you would think that climate is not very suitable for tea cultivation there because it's cold, it snows a lot in winter and those kind of things.

Simona · 36:48

But one of the participants in the project, the tea farmer who is from Miyazaki or Rajasan, together with a tea company, Lupicia, they collaborated to expand the northern line of tea cultivation and try to grow tea in that kind of environment and see how it will do. And of course, when we think, you know, about the climate change and maybe how the future of tea will be, maybe, yeah, with the change in climate, maybe the lines will naturally move more north side.

Simona · 37:21

And it's just an early attempt to see what what would happen in those situations. So it was very interesting. It, it, it was a very challenging project. They did not succeed immediately. Quite a few tea trees got sacrificed for the learning purpose, but they are still working on it.

Ryan · 37:38

And yeah, we are hoping to try some of the tea from the northern island. Is it through some sort of the greenhouse system? Or no, no, no, no. Just out in the soil, out in the elements. There's some, yeah. Yeah. OK, his talk is available on YouTube and one of the tea conference Association. Actually, I remember listening to that talk and like they face really unique problems, I think because they like cover the root systems to like insulate them during the winter. And apparently it's warm enough that actually it attracts rats as like Earl and ground.

Ryan · 38:19

So like it's like they really have to rethink like they have a lot of problems that just other tea producing regions don't have that are unique to that area and the type of agriculture you need to it's like really interesting. Yeah.

Ryan · 38:33

And like fault of our selection, I think was very. Difficult, so let's attach a link to that talk, yeah? We'll post it in the show now. Thank you so much, very cool. These these talks are amazing and and a lot of the innovators have these talks that during your conference really enjoy it and I thank you for making it English and Japanese.

Simona · 38:55

Yeah, we we try our. Best. So we had them on the project a couple of years ago, but we try now to invite them whenever possible to events to present and to introduce these, you know, ideas on projects they are working on so that more people can hear about them and get excited and get curious. Yeah.

Simona · 39:13

So that was like one example from the cultivation side, but thinking maybe about the culture side, where another project we featured was a portable tea room. I don't know if that came to your eyesight, but basically a frame made out of bamboo that you can assemble and disassemble wherever you like.

Simona · 39:32

And you can bring it, you know, by the river on the mountain top and have a that kind of travelling tea room that can. Yeah, you can experience tea ceremony basically anywhere in the world. So, yeah, things like that. And of course, now I think there are also a lot of topics in the West about like cooking with tea or pairing with tea or mixology.

Ryan · 39:53

So those kind of topics were also coming up in Japan and we featured quite a few of them through that project as well. Yeah, very. Cool. I really enjoyed the talk on the looking at tea genetics. That was the ultimate mash up of innovation and history and culture. Sam, I don't know if you saw that one, but they were using genetics like genetic sequencing technology to look at zairai lineages and compare it to the stated history about the way tea moved early in Japan and was C propagated. And they found some findings that might have been different than what's in the history books, which was really sort of a bombshell talk.

Simona · 40:33

It was really interesting. And the technology they developed the the scientist because I said developed together with the team. I think we'll have also quite a lasting impact in the tea industry as well, because what they have been able to do with with that DNA technology is also to shorten the path for creating new cultivars.

Simona · 40:56

I don't know if you know, he mentioned a little bit of that, but maybe didn't go in as much detail. But typically it can take like 20 to 30 years from the to restart until the cultivar is ready to register because it takes like planting, waiting for the new tea Bush to grow.

Simona · 41:14

And I'm harvesting the leaves, trying to process and doing it a couple of years to understand what what works and what doesn't. But there's technology using the DNA basically enables to see some of the features that the tea may have from almost a single leaf of the plant.

Simona · 41:32

So you just planted, you wait for one leaf to come out, and then you can analyze and see like the properties that he may have. So that can shorten, Yeah, the typical timeline from like 20-30 years down to maybe 1010, 15 or something like that. So that can help us adapt faster to change in conditions like we talked climate change or like insect dangers, disease dangers, those kind of things or changing preferences for the flavor, the taste of tea a little bit faster than was possible until now. So I think that will be also very interesting to follow and see how it develops and the effect it will have. Pretty interesting.

Ryan · 42:17

Have you seen any international collaboration over this kind of thing, like between like East Asia or even like between Europe or America and Asia? You mean and like the tea research? Or yeah, tea research, tea related research. So I'm myself not in academia, yeah, I cannot say precisely. I would imagine there is some collaboration at like university level.

Simona · 42:41

But what we've heard from like tea research institutes that are often funded directly by prefectures or by Japanese government, they tend to be a little bit cautious, especially in development of cultivars because it becomes.

Simona · 42:56

A bit of. A legal interior protection. Intellectual property and all that. Yeah, that's true. So we heard of people trying to reach out from different countries, from, you know, Europe or North America, looking for Japanese cultivars to plant in those places. But it's yeah, not, not very easy because of the legal fiber things.

Ryan · 43:20

Interesting. Very interesting. So when it comes to the association, what are ways that people can help or get engaged on either side to either support the work you're doing or to be actively involved in the community? Well, first thing we would say is to join us in the community, be part of it because yeah, we are all growing together. We are all learning from each other. And I think it's definitely a place to connect with like minded people from different parts of the world. And yeah, to to be part of this trend and to help to create the future for Japanese tea because we are all contributing to. So, yeah, the biggest thing

Simona · 44:00

would be please join us. But otherwise, yeah, people can follow us through the website, through the social media. We share as much as we can information about Japanese tea. And when we have some activities available for everyone to join, we also try to share that as well.

Ryan · 44:17

So just to be in the loop, follow us and and be part of the community. That's awesome. And the scope of your activities are the conferences you have the tea education courses. I know there's a bunch of like tea meetups all over the world. I went to one in Paris this summer where Matsu-san was presenting, which is super cool.

Ryan · 44:36

I got to have a bowl of tea prepared by him. That was a special moment. And then I guess the online events like the tea marathon, is there anything else within the scope of the activities of the association that I missed?

Simona · 44:49

Yeah. So we have some things that are routine. So, yeah, like the courses, the education side that we hold very regularly, then the membership activities, events that we also hold regularly and some of them are organized by our team. Like you mentioned Matsu-san was travelling this year. He is quite active.

Simona · 45:11

He's been to Europe, to France, but actually just a couple of days ago he came back from Nigeria. There was a tea festival there. So that was a new experience and, and, and the new kind of journey. But yeah, our team tries to travel so much as I'm going to different places. But also, I don't know if you connected Anna or another team member, one of the founders who is based in Spain. And she really represents us also in in many different events in Europe, going to tea festivals on trying to bring people together who attend and and treating opportunities to kind of hang out together and and get to know each other. So, yeah, these things kind of

Simona · 45:55

happened routinely and we try to do as much as possible, but we are also happy to see that things start to spring up on their own. So our members themselves, you know, go somewhere, travel somewhere and then they meet each other and we spend time together and then we have some things that are a bit more project based.

Simona · 46:14

Yeah, like the marathon we talked about before or like the tea innovators project we did before. So every year or every other year we maybe have like a a different new project that we want to focus on and and highlight different side of Japanese tea.

Simona · 46:32

So we try to announce them whenever they are available and and they come up. But yeah, we are never short of things to do, as you know. I'm sure. Well, yeah, back for like same things like community building, education and foundation sharing all all of it is based on that for the different activities and different projects.

Ryan · 46:52

Awesome. And as we move into the future, where would you like to see sort of, I guess both the state of the Japanese tea industry, but the association as well and like you know, the next 5 to 10 year time horizon, how do you see that progressing? So for the end, we really hope to have a bit more positive energy in there to not have or not feel so grim about it. And especially I think it's important to involve younger generation.

Simona · 47:20

So I haven't mentioned that, but we have another project for the university students called Japanese Evangelist Project, where university students come to learn with us about Japanese tea and then they travel abroad and they hold like the activities for their new friends or classmates or things like that. So we would really like to see that kind of new energy, new excitement for Japanese tea here in Japan with the younger generations and the wider public as well. Through small steps, through small projects. We are trying to go there, but in terms of association and the bigger picture for us as well,

Simona · 48:00

we would like to still mesh the two sides closer together, the Japanese side and the international side, create more projects, create more chances to collaborate together, to kind of interact with each other. Because I think that's really important to make the world of tea even more open and even more accessible where we are right now.

Simona · 48:22

Yeah. So the current trends I think are helping a little bit. People are getting more curious about Japanese tea at the moment, mostly matcha, but we hope that those will open the door to see and to notice and explore other teas as well. Yeah.

Ryan · 48:39

For sure, we hope so too and we're so happy that you guys exist. I can't think of any other like community tea community that just has such a wide reach in connecting people. And like there's that primary effect. But like as you said, people are meeting offline. People are like learning and then educating their, their local markets abroad.

Ryan · 48:59

You have all of these Japanese students who are learning how to brew usucha, bring that to whatever country that they have. And if you just think about the secondary or tertiary implications of that, the, the impact is huge.

Ryan · 49:11

So just as someone who's a member of the TEA community in general, I'm very grateful for all of the what I'm sure is an insane amount of work behind the scenes and putting this all together and for building this community.

Simona · 49:23

So thank you so much. Thank you so much for both of you and for having such kind words. Maybe we don't always realize the impact or how things ripple out from what we do, but we really, really appreciate you being part of it. And yeah, you know, it all depends on all of us. So the more people are involved, the better we can do. Absolutely.

Ryan · 49:47

Yes indeed, the more tea we can drink. Yes, the brighter, greener future. But thank you so much for coming on. We really appreciate your time and thank you to the listeners as well. If you enjoyed this, please consider sharing with a friend and follow with the the work of the Global Japanese Tea Association and join the community. It's a great community.

Zongjun · 50:08

We'd love to see you there and thank you so much for listening. Thanks. Thank you. See you in the future. See you. Bye.