Interview with Per Oscar Brekell

Ryan · 0:06

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

Ryan · 0:20

And today we have Oscar Breckel joining us to this podcast. Welcome, Oscar. Thank you for having me. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. So Oscar is a author of a number of very famous book related to Japanese tea and Japanese tea ceremony. So before we dive into this podcast, Oscar, can you share us a little bit about, you know, yourself, your personal background and your professional? Back absolutely.

Oscar · 0:42

So I fell in love with Japanese tea when I was in high school, so it's more than 20 years ago now and then I started drinking not only sencha and gyokuro and kabusecha and those kind of teas but actually matcha 2 so way before the matcha boom happened.

Oscar · 0:55

And I can tell you this was a quite lonely endeavor at the time because none of my friends basically were interested in green tea, be it Chinese green tea or Japanese green tea, whatever. And I grew up in southern Sweden, so, and Sweden is essentially a coffee country.

Oscar · 1:09

So that made the whole business of, you know, drinking green tea even lonelier. But I carried on for a couple of years and then eventually I traveled to Japan. I fell in love even more with Japanese tea. And somewhere along the way, I decided I got this weird idea because, you know, people become some of the years or baristas or whatever. Chocolate special.

Oscar · 1:30

And I was thinking, hey, there's no green tea guy out there. Well, there wasn't really at the time anyway. So and Japan, Japanese culture, Japanese tea. And I was young and naive. I think it was 21 years old when I decided upon this. And I was like, hey, I'm going to be the tea specialist. I'm going to study Japanese and go over to Japan, study Japanese tea for a couple of years, and then probably the guy introducing Japanese overseas, which kind of happened. So to make a very, very long history or very Long story short, and this is not a straight Rd. basically a lot of things happen along the way.

Oscar · 2:04

But eventually I did get my certification St. certified as a tea instructor, Japanese tea instructor. As you know, I'm writing a couple of books on the topic. They're available in English, Japanese, and actually there's a version in French as well. And what else is there to be?

Oscar · 2:20

So, well, I did my tea training actually basically in Shizuoka, a prefecture, which is probably a lot of your listeners are familiar with as well, one of the biggest tea growing regions in Japan and one of the most important ones as well because they do a lot of tea refining and blending as well, apart from just a growing tea there. But they have a tea Research Center where they do things like breed new cultivars and just conduct different kinds of research on tea.

Oscar · 2:44

And I was there for a year and that's basically what I did where I got my proper tea training. And ever since I've been working actually for the IS government, I've been for myself as well. I have a company now. So I do have small tea brand as well.

Ryan · 2:56

But my main thing is basically I do tea lectures, tea events it. Was awesome super interesting actually before we like dive into what like we talked about before for a good topic for an episode just like super curious what goes on behind the curtain at these tea research institutes across Japan.

Ryan · 3:15

We've walked by the one in Kyoto and we were like, oh, what's going? We've heard about what goes on in there in terms of reading and selecting new cultivars, but like, I still don't have a very good understanding of what's going on in these centers. I actually need to ask you a question, Ryan. So you walked around it, but you actually didn't enter. No, we were just walking around like the general area. It was like 5:00 PM too.

Ryan · 3:39

It was sort of weird random weekday. We were trying to get a sense of how much honzu shading was actually happening in Uji. So we spent 5 or 6 hours just walking around everywhere and we're actually quite depressed by one. The number of abandoned tea farms, like even next to Okanoyama Tea Garden, like one block down the street, this an abandoned tea garden.

Ryan · 4:02

What's like arguably one of the best areas to grow tea? And then honzu shading, I think. What did we see? Sound like four or five? Yeah, four or five and very small because I. Was going to say probably a very little, yeah. OK, So what goes on?

Oscar · 4:16

Well, it really depends on where you are basically. So for example, at the place where you you didn't enter in Uji, they're mainly focused on breeding cultivars for for matcha and for any any shaded teas. Whereas firstly in a place like Shizuoka, they have been at least until recently more focused on sencha.

Oscar · 4:34

But they're also doing a lot of other things. It's not only about cultivar breeding, it's also about things like how does different kinds of fertilizers affect the tea plant and the nutrients and the tea tea leaves and so forth, and how does that affect the taste and the flavor and of course the soil, those kind of things. And you have research on pesticides as well, those kind of things.

Oscar · 4:59

And then they also do research on different kinds of processing tea. So they're experimenting with, you know, things like withering. And it's fun. Actually. It's very fun to be there because especially, well, I can only speak for the, for the Shizuoka one. And Shizuoka because that was 1 where I did my training. But it's a very fun place to be if you're a tea lover, a tea enthusiast, or anyone who wants to learn about tea because basically they have equipment for making lots of different kinds of tea.

Oscar · 5:28

So obviously we have a factory for making sencha. We have a factory for making oolong tea. We have a actually a factory for making black tea as well. So we were doing all that. And I think actually for me, one of the most more rewarding kind of interesting things to do was that we had, because when you do culture our breeding, essentially what you have is like sometimes just one single tea plant and you try to pluck tea leaves in spring to make tea from that. It's like 2 little tea leaves are they're basically not enough for processing sencha in a normal factory. So what we had was like kind of

Oscar · 6:05

would kind of look like toy factory or kind of like, you know, not not as in a place where they make toys, but factory fork toys where, you know, Barbie dolls could work on processing teas or stuffed dolls or something like everything is smaller. So you have tea rollers, steamers, everything, everything is like tiny because you want to be able to make tea from those new kind of cultivar candidates.

Oscar · 6:29

Uh, the new candidates, for the record, don't have a name yet. They just have a number. Uh, but you want to see how, how do they taste like? And, and funny thing is, you do tea evaluation as well a lot. So you have like 30-40 different samples in front of you and you do tea evaluation.

Oscar · 6:45

Turns out that most of them taste awful, bitter. It's like awfully stringent or something and you just discard them basically. And they told me that, you know, because I was there for a year and a lot of people that have been working with the cultivar breeding for like, you know, 5-6 years or even more, they said, well, basically our job is to throw things away. So, but there was just actually there or another researcher and he said, well, actually, so you can modify that bit saying that well among, you know, all the different candidates for becoming a new cultivar that we breed. Our job is well, of course,

Oscar · 7:20

partly to discard or throw all these cultural candidates away. But then again, it's also our job to pick something up, keep something that has a very, very good taste. For example, also be that a particular tea plant is very strong towards frost or different kinds of disease.

Oscar · 7:39

Yeah, it wasn't. It was very interesting and you do learn a lot and even in winter because there's not a lot to do in at a tea farm and that includes the tea farms, there's not a lot to do in winter. But they had like the best library ever, a lot of T books that you know are not printed anymore and so forth. So I was very happy by the time that I did spend most of my adult life learning Japanese because that's really a life project.

Ryan · 8:06

But it turned out to be to pay off that was able to do or study about T at the T Research Center. Very interesting. How well does the knowledge getting transferred from the institute to the actual farmers or the factories? Like, is there a mechanism or like some sort of the education organization that does that or, you know, the institute does it themselves?

Oscar · 8:28

So actually, contrary to what you might think, you can basically visit AT Research Center anytime you might want to give. So if you want them to guide you or something, but they're basically open to the public and especially if you're not restricted to, but especially if you are a Shizuoka resident and if you're a tea farmer, you could basically go there anywhere just, well, I mean, anytime, just to keep yourself updated on the latest news, whatever, if you want to get in touch with the researchers.

Oscar · 8:58

And actually there are some farmers that are really interested in new cultivars in particular because if you're a tea farmer, you want to do something different from everybody else. Everyone's doing a Bukita, for example, though, and not recently a lot of people do see Hikaru. So there are like some of the cultivars that a lot of people or a lot of farmers are doing.

Per · 9:15

But maybe if you're a tea farmer and, and if you want to do something unique just to stand out, what you can do is you can go to the tea Research Center and become one of those farmers who experiment with a new unregistered cultivars or not yet registered cultivars. So, and they do things like, you know, seminars and different kinds of gatherings.

Per · 9:38

And I think they're quite closing contact with not only tea farmers, but you know, anyone in the business basically, and, and also people working for the prefecture. So when I was there, when I was there for a year and I feel like people were, you know, coming in and out all the time.

Per · 9:52

And basically we especially, I mean teen discreet people, but also media. So I think they're always like and very close, closely connected to, to the public. So we can just walk in and like spend the day. Walking. But you might want to give them a heads up, especially if you're a foreigner and especially if you don't speak Japanese. You might want to have a Japanese speaker with you that could, you know, translate.

Per · 10:17

It's quite fun to visit actually. I think I highly recommend it actually, especially the the kind of mini tea factory that I was talking about earlier. Both I think killed us. The one in kilter, the one in Uji is I think they renewed it is probably more maybe more than 10 years ago now, but it's it's a quite nice looking building.

Per · 10:37

And actually the one in Shizuoka too, when I was there is quite rundown. And they certainly needed some renovation. And, and guess what it's actually done now. It's isn't a place called Kikugawa City, but the whole area is called Makinoha Makinoha Daichi, which is like a plateau basically, more or less with basically only tea farms and some residential areas.

Per · 10:58

But there's like tea farms as far as you can see basically. And then there's this tea Resource Center that finally looks nice now. It's supported by MAF like the Ministry of Agriculture and Fishery Forestries. So actually there this is very confusing, but there are two different T risk research centers on the same Rd. but they're in different municipalities.

Per · 11:21

The one is in Shimada, and that one is very close to the that one is very close to the the tea Museum by the way they have there. So that's another reason for visiting that area. This is in the central part of Shizuka, but that one is actually the National Tea Research Center, which is sponsored by the the Ministry of Agriculture in Japan, as you mentioned.

Per · 11:42

And there's another one further down the road, which is not a National Research center. It's a prefectural. So it's run by the Shizuka Prefectural Government and that's the one. Why was it? I guess so this is essentially much a podcast, but if listeners are somewhat familiar with the Sincha and Sincha cultivars, just to drop a few names here, some of the cultivars that were bred at the T Research Century and Shizuoka would be caution, for example. Very floral.

Ryan · 12:08

Yeah, I'm caution. And what else? Yamakaya for example, I just name a few of. Both Sam and I got to try Kotian when we were a koto tea space in Bangkok from. Brand, you mentioned that. Oh, you mentioned in Kotovar. I just came back from a series of sessions, one of the best tea shops or tea spaces in the world, I said. They, I, I, I don't like classifying myself as someone who doesn't like sencha.

Ryan · 12:32

I think I don't like most sencha. But actually it was the Kotian cultivar from your brand Senchi ISM that they brewed that really opened my mind. OK, wow, there's more dimensions to this than I thought. And what they do is variable temperature extractions.

Per · 12:48

Really interesting. Or they start cold and get hotter and hotter. Was also kind of made me see sencha in a really new way. So very inspiring for my own like personal brewing, even for matcha. Like I've started to experiment with these variable temperatures. It's great to hear actually, because I remember having quotient for the first time.

Per · 13:07

I was back in 2013. I just moved to Tokyo and I was basically one of those salary men. I had a corporate job here in Japan. I was working for a Japanese company and I was trying to get my tea instructor certificate, which was kind of hard to study on the side because, you know, long working hours, a lot of late. And I work basically and a lot of, you know, drinking with your colleagues, although those kind of things. But I kept studying tea and I went to this workshop held by a Japanese tea instructor just to motivate myself. This was on a weekend quite early after I'd moved to Japan. I was sort of caution.

Per · 13:44

I just thought it was amazing. It's like, you know, I had this image of sencha in my head being mostly about the the green flavors and it's, you know, being a good balance of astringency, umami, all those kind of things.

Per · 13:56

And but mainly about the green flavors kind of for us like aromas going on. And then caution has something completely different. It's like floral and then it's like a cinnamon like after taste. That's always great. So it kind of changed my perception of Sincha. And that was after having, you know, been ranking sencha for 10 years or so.

Ryan · 14:16

So, so it's wonderful to hear that a lot of other people out there get a similar reaction. I have a question about the the research institutes and just the general structure of these different government bodies in Japan.

Ryan · 14:29

There's like the auction houses, like you hear about the Shiosa Shizuoka auction house and the Kyoto 1 and that system and then you have these research centers and then you have the cooperatives. And I know like the Kyoto T cooperative associations like enormous, it's like 160 members or 130 something like that. How do these different entities interact with each other and how are they funded?

Per · 14:57

Is it all from government support? Is it self supported? Is what's the ecosystem is a little fuzzy and how all of that's connected. So basically the the research centers, they're entirely ex funded. So they're either government funded as in funded through or via the the Minister of agriculture or one of the prefectural governments.

Per · 15:20

OK, Well, for example, in the case of the Shizuoka Tea Research Center, they are funded by the whole organization, the premises, everything is funded by the local government as in the prefectural government. So that means that, for example, research at that particular tea Research Center is mainly aimed for benefiting tea farmers or any anyone, you know, in tea in Shizuoka. Now, this is not always entirely possible because let's say you're from me or whatever, or some other fairly nearby place and you go to Shizuoka and you want one of their cultivars. They're not very likely to stop you as in or, you know, to say, no, we're not going to give our

Per · 16:04

cultivars to you because you're not part of Shizuoka. So it's not like, you know, not trying to, it's not like trying to stop like industrial espionage or something from, you know, foreigners coming, coming in trying to find out things about your industry or something.

Per · 16:19

It's not on that level. But there is. So for example, in, in the case of so God, they think about the local climate whenever they are developing or breeding cultivars, those kind of things. And whatever research they conduct, you know, the whole, the main premise would be how does this benefit or how would this benefit or how would the results of this benefit the farmers or anyone in T in the prefecture? So As for the other ones, cooperatives there and mainly privately funded.

Per · 16:46

So it's a completely different. So, but if you're asking me about the, the ecosystem and how it works, I think the T research centers, they're, they're essentially open for everyone actually. So you can, I mean, if you want to read the reports, if you want any information, you can get in touch with them. It's not like they're, you know, it's not like a private company, you know, OK, it's not like, OK, so we're developing this new whatever semiconductor and, and it's a lot better than our competitors.

Per · 17:13

We don't know, we don't want anyone to know about this or how we do it basically. So it's kind of the opposite way around actually. So they do want people to use their cultivars. They do want people to. Interest and do the institute's talk to each other as well.

Per · 17:27

The institute's as in the She's a professional Research Center and the national, for example, or. Yeah. Or like other teen institutes from other regions, like do they like exchange their insights or? They do. And I think there's a lot of personal interactions as well as in private, because if you're in T and if you're doing research on T, then this is a small world. So you're very likely to, let's say someone's doing research on fertilizers and you're doing it as well, then you're very likely to interact at some point.

Per · 18:01

So I'd say yes, they do that, of course. And if there's been research on something at the National Research Center, they might make use of that in Chisoka and vice versa. Interesting. And the auction system is totally different or it's tied to one of those two. So those are a little different because they work different in different regions, different prefectures. So for example, some in some prefectures you're only allowed to join if you're actually if your business is based in the prefecture, whereas there are some places that are open for everyone.

Per · 18:35

So you can actually be for example, in shizzle, it can be from Tokyo, for example, and you can still go to the tea market and shizzle cut and purchase tea. Some of them are closed and so like the one in. I heard the one in Kagoshima is like super closed.

Oscar · 18:48

It's like a little oligopoly if we can get that material. I think so I think it's maybe I think they're working different way because I mean they've been developing along very different lines. For example, Shizuoka is although being one of the biggest T1 regions in Japan.

Oscar · 19:05

So it was the biggest for a very long time. It has developed not only as AT1 region, but also as a place where they do things like T refining and also T blending. So for example, you mentioned Kagoshima, actually Kagoshima's biggest customer, most important customer used to be Shizuoka, not as a perfector obviously, but you know, tea businesses in Shizuka taking as a whole until not so long ago.

Oscar · 19:29

Actually, if you were selling something, if you if you, you bought Shizuka tea could actually contain a lot of tea from Kagoshima. They changed the regulation. So if you want to sell something as Shizoka tea, it has to be 100% made in Shizoka. The raw tea the has to be 100% grown in Shizoka. But that didn't used to be the case. So let's say if we rewind back to the 70s or something, they would still buy a lot of tea from Kagoshima blended with Shizoka.

Oscar · 19:57

So it's she's always essentially the name of a blend. I think since the, the along those lines, if you look at it a place like Kagoshima, they kind of started out as an, as an exporter kind of in a way. I mean, they're not exporting overseas, but they're selling most of their teas now.

Oscar · 20:17

What they're what they've been trying to do. And this is actually quite new. A lot of people are, you know, used to seeing teas like Chiran cha and, you know, or Kagoshima tea, pure tea as in from from Kagoshima as in, you know, containing only or from Kagoshima Prefecture.

Oscar · 20:33

This is quite a new phenomenon, actually. So they used to ship their teas either to Shizuoka or to Uji. So I think that's kind of them kind of wanting to be in control and the tea industry. Whereas a place like Shizuoka, you probably benefit more from, you know, having people come in tea tea vendors, tea dealers from places like Tokyo to come in and buy your tea where because you already buy tea from a lot of different places. And basically your mission has been to push that kind of onwards or to different markets.

Oscar · 21:03

Whereas in Kagoshima, it's about getting Kagoshima tea out basically only. And it's not you don't you don't buy any tea from other prefectures and in Kagoshima, at least not to a considerable degree at the moment. So that's probably why they have, yeah, murdered down.

Ryan · 21:20

Yeah, exactly. Yep. Interesting. Well, yeah, you can just see Oscar this podcast expand way beyond the topic of matcha. Exactly. I think we're touching on subjects that are common for both leafty and matcha. I think when we were speaking couple of weeks ago, I remember that we, we talked about, you know, could you make cultivars that taste like Koshun and then kind of turn it into matcha making the matcha floral or, you know, herbal And that makes it kind of interesting if you think of the possibility of that.

Oscar · 21:53

I think though, the answer is at least for now, because we, we, we do kind of know actually, because you can try this, you can grow Koshun or Seimei or some, some kind of floral fruity cultivar and shade it for three weeks.

Oscar · 22:08

If you want to make, let's say you want to make proper matcha and then you do all the things necessary. You, you hand pluck it and then you steam it and then you dry it without rolling. And finally you take out the veins and everything. You do what you, you know, you produce tencha basically, and then you mill, mill that with a stone mill and you end up with matcha. Will it taste Koshun?

Oscar · 22:31

There is an interesting part. Probably not because you shade for three weeks, right? So it's shaded for three weeks, you get the shaded flavor, right? The kind of seaweed like in Japan, it's quite common to describe it kind of like kind of as aonori, which is it's a type of seaweed that you that you put on okonomiyaki popular dish here. I think a lot of people probably like Japan, so a lot of your listeners are probably familiar with okonomiyaki, but it's the kind of like powdery green bluish kind of seaweed powder that you put on okonomiyaki and it has a similar flavor. Actually, there is a, there is a

Oscar · 23:09

molecule and dimethyl sulfide that you get a lot of when you shade, especially if you shade for more than 10 days, you start getting this shaded aroma or ooika as it's also called in Japanese. And as you get more ooika, you lose other cultivar flavors. So your matcha is not going to taste like Koshun, sadly. But you then again, you never know because I mean, if you look at, I don't know, maybe we should make a visit to the, the Uji research station because I think what they probably have done so far is they've been developing or breeding cultivars that are good for shading.

Oscar · 23:46

And I think, I mean, there are two perspectives here. 1 is the tea plant should be good at being shaded, as in it should not, you know, get too weak from shading. So it has to be, you know, tolerant enough to the stress involved in being being shaded. But I also think that, and this is actually similar to most cultivars and when it comes to sencha, because in the case of sencha, we got Yabukita, right, which is the main cultivar.

Oscar · 24:12

And most of the other cultivars have actually been bred to bred kind of in order to get mixed with or blended with Yabukita. So cultivars like those kind of flavorful cultivars, it's a very new phenomenon. I think tea character.

Oscar · 24:29

Exactly. I think people who, you know, tea enthusiasts, aficionados, whatever people that are into tea, beef tea today, they want, you know, the different flavor flavors and different taste experiences. But that wasn't necessarily the case.

Oscar · 24:44

You know, let's say like 30-40 years ago, the most teas were blended and we didn't really have a single estate Japanese tea scene. So if you breed something like Koshun in the 70s or 60s, it's not going to pass. It's going to be discarded. It's going to be one of those cultivars that the researchers discard because it's it's too flavorful. It's not going to, you know, be easy to blend. So you want something that tastes similar to Yabukita. And then if we jump back to matcha, I think, you know, we have cultivars like Samidori, Asahi and Ujikari. And of course they're a little bit different. But I mean, let's be honest,

Oscar · 25:20

you're not like extremely different from each other. So if we go back to sencha again, like Yabukita and Koshun, those are entirely different, very different. I think they're like, you know, this is like Pinot noir and I don't know, covering this onion or something.

Oscar · 25:35

I don't know if that's a good reference entirely, but it's not a perfect analogy. But if you can't separate those two, you probably didn't have a lot of red wine in your life. So, same with Koshun, and they're very, very different.

Oscar · 25:47

Now let's go back to Samidori and Asahi. Let's make a blind test. I mean, there's a difference. There is a difference. Of course it is. I mean, I think Asahi is a little more thick, like more avocado, like kind of in this texture and taste.

Oscar · 26:01

It's kind of grows in the mouth, something that it tends to be a little bit more fresh. So there's a difference here. But I mean, it's, it's possible to make a mistake, right? I don't think it's possible to make a mistake if you compare Yabukita and Koshun, unless you know there's something wrong happened during processing or something.

Oscar · 26:16

But I think it's a lot more difficult when it comes to matcha. And this could actually be one reason, could be that most of the cultivars bred for matcha so far has been bred so as to kind of resemble each other because they're blends anyway.

Oscar · 26:29

But maybe because now we're thinking in a different way. Now people want different, you know, flavor experiences and people are looking for something more diverse. You don't want exactly the same thing every day. Also, I think this is not only consumers or tea, tea drinkers, whatever. I think this is also about how tea companies work because you won't if you, if you run a matcha company, you probably prefer that your matcha tastes a little bit different from your competitors.

Oscar · 26:58

Whatever, at least a little different. So I think there's probably demand for making matcha that tastes quite different. Is it possible? And in that case, to what extent, I don't know. Actually I think we, we need probably like, you know, another 1520 years maybe before we could see like really strong flavored matcha. That's interesting.

Oscar · 27:20

The breeding is a slow process. The purpose of breeding is, you know, people are developing all these cultivars with the mindset of blending and, you know, with the mindset of maintaining consistency and with the mindset that's not having one cultivar being too, you know, different from the others. I don't know.

Oscar · 27:38

Yeah. You know, like with all these global trend about, you know, single estate and single origin and single cultivar matcha, people are going to look for novelties. I don't know if that has has been down to the local production and you know, tea research in Japan. I think it has, but I think one thing everyone needs to understand is that it takes a lot of time to breed a cultivar. So basically what you do is let's say you have Yabukita and so you need a flowering Yabukita, which happens in late October typically, but depends a little on where in Japan you are.

Per · 28:10

And then let's say you want to mix this Yabukita with or cross breeded with, well, let's say caution. So what you do is you have a flowering Yabukita and then you take pollen from a flowering caution and you insert that pollen into the flower. Then you put actually what you do is you put a small bag or a kind of sack licking thing on top of the flower because you don't want any other pollen coming in there. You want to make sure that you actually get the, the, the desired mix of those two.

Per · 28:42

You can of course, do it the other way around if you want the, the caution to be, if you want caution to be the mother plant, you can do the opposite way around. Anyway, you need two different flowers to, to to get a seed.

Per · 28:53

And if you're lucky, you get a seed next year, first of all. OK, so that's one year. You plant that a couple of months later in a small pot and then you keep that in the greenhouse. And eventually, if you're lucky, you actually do get a small tea plant.

Per · 29:06

And if that survives, you probably replant it in a kind of nursery just outside where you keep a lot of new cultivars or cultivar candidates if you like. And you see that survives. If it does, you get small tea plant eventually.

Per · 29:22

And when it's 2-3 years old, you can start plucking a little bit in spring. And then you can use those leaves, steam them and process them into something that probably wouldn't call, call it, you know, sencha, but you know, something resembling sencha in one of those mini factories that you have at the Tea Research Center.

Per · 29:40

And then what you do is you have the researchers, they do the tea evaluation and they realize that, oh, 90% tastes awful. Let's just discard these. The other 10% survives and or they get to survive. And what you do is then you see, oh, do they grow healthily or are they likely to, you know, catch different kinds of disease like fungi and those kind of things? And so that's another like two or three years. Then eventually you multiply it.

Per · 30:08

So you take cuttings now eventually you get like a small tiny hedge tea plants. So you can now process tea in the not the mini factory, but the just slightly tiny factory. And then eventually you keep repeating this and after 1012 years what you do is OK now. Now is the time to actually let these cultivar candidates go and see what happens if we actually have them grown by actually tea farmers.

Per · 30:38

So you look for volunteers, tea farmers that are interested in basically experimenting, sacrificing a part of their plot to try to grow these new cultivars. And you give them cuttings basically. And they're still calls is four or five O 3, whatever.

Per · 30:56

Like they just have a number basically and the farmers they produces. And so you if this isn't she's OK for reason, we probably do this in a few mountainous regions and then some. You'd also experiment. You also want the farmers to do this in more flat areas so you can see how the tea plant behaves in both cases. Exactly because you also want to make you need to make a decision.

Per · 31:20

It's going to be, you know, cultivar for steam, deep steam tea or like Gummichi or is it going to be a cultivar for, you know, high mountain or like high altitude places. So you have to take those kind of decision decisions and you you bring back all the data, you evaluate the tea and then finally, after a couple of years, say, no, we finally have this cultivar. It kind of tastes like chocolate or whatever. It's really unique.

Per · 31:46

It tastes like nothing we have ever seen before. And it actually survives, you know, it doesn't die every summer because you know, it gets attacked by moths or whatever. So OK, let's give it a name and spread it. And actually by by the time that happens probably at least 20 years have got passed since you mixed, you know, the pollen, you know from the cochin flower with the Yabukita, so.

Per · 32:13

That's. Crazy. At least 20 years. So when I was at the Research Center, that's eleven years ago now, which means whatever I bred there, if it ever gets registered, it's probably another 1213 years. So we're looking for new matcha cultivars. But we want it now, right?

Per · 32:31

Because now matcha is popular, right? So maybe you want a purple matcha or something, or you know, maybe maybe 1 of matcha with, I don't know, slightly floral herbal flavor. I don't know if it's possible or not. But if it's possible, I mean, it's going to take a long time to breathe this unless you do things like genetic engineering or something.

Per · 32:51

I mean, the current, current ways of breeding cultivars, it takes about 20 years before we can actually get, you know, all the results needed for, for taking the decision that, OK, this is the one we're going to register.

Ryan · 33:05

It's kind of insane to think about. For all the matcha that's popular today, it was actually being developed like 20 years ago with a very different mindset and goals. Exactly. So there's time lag here. Quite amazing time lag I think, yeah. Is it possible to do some like cultivar arbitrage? Are there cultivars that exist in Taiwan or in mainland China or in Korea that might just be very suitable for shaded cultivation and matcha processing? Because we've heard that Long Jing 43, there's some Chinese producers and we've actually tried some samples. I mean, it doesn't hold a candle to at least the ones we tried to anything that comes out of

Ryan · 33:46

Japan. But, you know, it also was like, wow, actually this case, like it could work if maybe someone like if a Japanese farmer had that cultivar, like probably could taste good using, you know, better techniques. But is there any like experimentation going on about the importing other cultivars that were developed elsewhere?

Per · 34:07

Well, I mean, if your question is specifically about matcha, I would have to, you know, call the Research Center UG or, you know, wherever they do research on cultivars for for making shaded teas. But if we just talking generally about Japanese tea, there's actually a long tradition of importing cultivars or different kinds of tea plants from overseas. I think the biggest way was probably during the Meiji period the when Japan modernized because the important. Thing to think about, this was happening 150 years ago. Exactly.

Per · 34:38

You didn't see that one coming because at the time, actually tea export was a really important industry for the whole tea industry was really important for Japan because it was one of the few ways they could actually gain foreign currency. The other big one was silk.

Per · 34:54

But actually the second biggest export product at the time was tea. It was mainly sent shipped to the US and Canada, but also to European countries. But at the time, what happened was that the whole world market for tea was kind of changing in favor of black tea.

Per · 35:11

Demand for black tea was rising, but Japan was essentially mainly producing green teas. And they try to make black tea. You can make black tea from, you know, Japanese cultivars. And actually, this is before cultivars. This is when we have seed propagated tea.

Per · 35:24

So but exactly. But anyway, the tea farms or the tea plants that they had in Japan were essentially better for making green tea. So what they did was they went to India and sounds like a very simple thing to do, but I think a lot of people, Japanese people, they were actually risking their lives going to different mountainous regions in India to get seats. And basically for from tea plants that were good for making a processing black tea.

Per · 35:52

And they were introduced to, to Japan in a number of different places. They were planted in a number of different places. But what happened is, or what happens is actually even now, if you plant Indian with the assamica varietal in Japan is that it won't survive.

Per · 36:08

It's simply too cold in Japan, especially in spring. Some places it's too cold in winter as well for the assamica plant. But it's essentially the spring with all the frost in in March and so forth that because the assamica varietal tends to grow very fast.

Per · 36:23

So what they did was they cross bred the the assamica T fine with the sinensis or the, the, the Chinese bread or that they they've had in Japan for a couple hundreds of years. And eventually we got things like or cultivars like Benifuuki, Benihomare. For example, any of the Benny cultivars, those are black tea cultivars with, with Indian DNA.

Per · 36:48

This actually, this has been going on for for quite a long time actually. And there has been a lot of cases where they've imported cultivars from Taiwan as well. If you go to the Tea Research Center in Shizuoka, you should ask them to take you to the, the, the kind of DNA bank greenhouse. It's a small greenhouse where they have tea plants that actually among them.

Per · 37:14

There are some of them that don't really look like tea plants. It's just, it feels like, I don't know, place where they're making like genetic engineering experiments or whatever. It's all, it's all natural. But they're, you know, they're tea plants from places like Myanmar, from China, whatever it's, they just keep them there just in case they'd be able to do something interesting.

Per · 37:36

And a lot of them has been, a lot of them have been there since, you know, many decades back, like some even like 100 years back or something. Or this is actually a long tradition. And I think it's more to do now because nowadays, you know, in the modern world, it's a little more tricky to import. Customers in and out.

Per · 37:57

More cuttings? People are more protective, actually. Yeah. I mean, if you're, if you have Liz, you mentioned like Long Jing 43 or something. I mean, you probably want to keep that in Zhejiang or, you know, at least in, in China, you're Chinese and probably don't want, you know, the Japanese to. Yeah, it's more of a business athlete. This Meiji story sounds very much like a Japanese version of Robert Fortune, the Scottish botanist who. From China, but the other way, not into India, but yeah, being out India.

Zongjun · 38:35

Interesting. So actually nothing that we've talked about so far with what we had originally proposed to talk about, which is always great. But the conversation we were having two weeks ago was so fascinating to me. It's still resonating in my mind.

Zongjun · 38:52

And I was giving a suggestion to sort of talk about the single origin versus blended concept to put some color on that, You know, just as a consumer trying to learn tea, kind of bringing in a specialty lens. I was really into Chinese tea and coffee where like a sense of origin is super strong.

Zongjun · 39:07

Like you can pretty reliably learn the taste of different regions or different cultivars and getting into Japanese tea, spending all this money on Uji matcha, and then very slowly, bit by bit learning that most of the Uji matcha I've ever was trying to associate a flavor with a place.

Zongjun · 39:24

Terroir was probably like mistraining. Like I was not drinking samples that were grown in Uji. I was not learning terroir. I was learning like a blending style. And I really felt lied to as a just as a consumer like that. It's not Uji matcha.

Zongjun · 39:40

And we've learned that Shizuoka, I guess now is Shizuoka up like reliably, but at one point it wasn't. And I've learned the same case for Nishio and some other regions. So I got really intrigued, was Uji matcha ever from Uji? And at what point did it stop being from Uji? And you had such an interesting take that really took me back because even during like the Edo period when it was forbidden to grow matcha anywhere outside of Uji proper. And let me know if I'm mischaracterizing this, but your argument was it actually terroir doesn't really matter. It really has always been about fertilizer and processing technique that's driving these

Per · 40:19

flavor profile outcomes and that great matcha and Uji tastes. Tencha can theoretically be grown anywhere, and the magic is happening in the fertilizer and in the processing. Is that a fair characterization? In short, I'd say yes.

Per · 40:35

I mean, so tea in general, especially well Japanese, your steamed green teas are less terroir dependent or terroir driven if you like. I think tea in general, though, we have to remember that when we drink tea. I mean, where are you guys right now?

Per · 40:50

I'm in Tokyo. You're. In Paris. You're in Paris, Hong Kong, Hong Kong. So let's see, we're, we want to have the same tea, which happens sometimes people do those kind of tea gatherings, right? And you're in different parts of the world and you have the same tea, but it's not going to taste the same, right? It's 99.9% or so water, right?

Per · 41:08

Give it to you. So which means that you're essentially drinking a lot of water. I think first of all, it gets affected by the water we use for brewing. But not only that, processing is also very important. So I think when we talked about this, I think I mentioned that. So just to slide back to sencha because it makes it a little easier to explain this.

Per · 41:29

So for example, if you have a river, let's say the the Abe river in Shizuoka or something, and you have tea farms on the east side of the river and tea farms on the West side of the river. And then you try the different teas and you say, oh, they're actually, you know, tastes a little different. You know, West side is a little bit more astringent and the other one's a little more sweet, whatever. And if you're new to tea or like sencha and Japanese green tea, you're probably inclined to think that, oh, this must be, you know, the way the the sun hits the, you know, tea plants or must be like exposure to some or

Per · 42:05

something or, you know. Rainfall. Local climate, whatever. So you interpret this as a terroir and I think it's it's quite a natural thing to do. However, it turns out actually that things are quite different. What happens is so typically if you travel downstream kind of to the lower parts of the river, whatever lower altitude areas, there's typically a tea refining factory there.

Per · 42:33

OK, so this this where they do the blending and it's also where they do the tea refining. So they have a style of refining, but nevermind actually the, there's a change even before that, because what happens is all of the tea farmers, probably at least if you're a tea farmer on the West side of the river, you probably ship your tea or hand over a large chunk of your production to the tea refiner on the West side. Whereas if you're on the east side, you probably, you know, ship your tea or hand over your tea to the the other tea refining factory that's on the east side of the river. So you have two different tea

Per · 43:11

refining factories. And here's an interesting thing. So even if you're in the realm of sencha for the sake of the argument and everyone's doing like kind of orthodox classic sencha, so it's like short steaming time, and they're probably using similar equipment as well made by any of the, you know, big tea processing machine companies in Japan or makers in Japan. That would be either Tada or Kawasaki Kiko. But let's say they're using the same just for the sake of the argument.

Per · 43:40

He's still going to taste a little different. But this is mainly because the tea refining factory, they're basically the ones calling the shots. They're saying like, hey, I want you to, you know, steam this little slightly more, or like maybe you should roll this a little more. You know, the fine rolling should be like, you should do that for a little longer or whatever. They do all the quality evaluation and they give the feedback to the farmers.

Per · 44:05

So the farmers essentially produce the tea that the tea refiners want. So there's pretty style. So this is not, you know, the sun exposure. This is actually, you know, what they've been instructed to do. So if you tell the people, let's say the, let's say the, the tea refining factory on the West side goes bust for some reason.

Per · 44:25

So now all the farmers suddenly have to ship their teeth to the, the factory on the east side. And they have capacity for this. So they, they managed to solve it somehow, but they're going to give new directions to the farmers.

Per · 44:36

They're going to say no, no, no, actually, because we, we're making this blend here. So we want you to process this in a slightly different style and eventually both are going to taste the same basically. So this has more to do with who they actually hang out with as in who are they dealing with that What kind of tea refiner is is in charge of, you know, the blending and who's calling the shots basically.

Per · 44:58

So, and if we look at this from a wider perspective, if you have if you have a tea plant, we already talked about black tea varietals imported from India, right? But you can still do make black tea from Yabukita or any Japanese green tea cultivar. So, So processing is more important than terroir obviously, because you can make such different things as, you know, black tea and green tea or oolong teas, whatever. So we have processing, and then we do have things like weather, actually, because if we do get a lot of sun exposure, you know, the tea is likely to taste more bitter is why shaded teas taste more sweet because less exposure

Per · 45:35

to to sunlight, so more sweetness in the umami. So we have processing, and we also have local climate as in exposure to sunlight and altitude, those kind of things. But we also have cultivars. Yeah. And I think of all the things affecting the taste and flavor of tea output, at least for Japanese green tea, I put terroir quite low. You, I think it would be the last thing. So we start with processing.

Per · 46:02

And processing includes things as, you know, just slight differences in how you roll your tea, whatever. So it's not only, you know, are you making black tea or green tea or are you making, you know, deep steam tea or light steam tea processing effects at all? And then cultivation too.

Per · 46:19

And that's going back to our matcha topic because you need a lot of fertilizers to get all that umami, you know, to get those soft leaves with a lot of nutrition. I think yes, you can kind of actually repeat this if you are in a completely different place. But then the question is even if you have, you know, the climate should be suitable enough for for making tea. So you can do this probably anywhere in any tea-growing region in Japan.

Per · 46:45

But do you have a know how you know? So this is, you know, another aspect of terroir in a sense, because when you when we talk about terroir, we tend to exclude humans, right? We tend to talk about altitude, you know, soil, those kind of things.

Per · 47:00

But if you use the word or the notion of terroir in a wider sense, you can actually include things like culture and history too. So, and Uji has developed, as you know, they produce a lot of different teas, but to some degree a matcha producing or a tencha producing region.

Per · 47:15

So they have the know how they have the traditions, you know, that they have the the tea pickers, everything basically. So if you include that in terroir and yeah, certainly it is, but I think it's it's very different, you know, from suggesting that, you know, because the soil is, isn't that also he tastes a little whatever. I think this is really different, difficult to taste difference from different kinds of soils and so on. Yeah, because it's so far down the list and you'd said? To shaded cultivation is kind of a homogenizer. Is it even possible to build a deductive tasting framework to work backwards and say you know

Ryan · 47:52

this tea is from like for Akawa say cha or this tea is from Suji San or this tea is from Horaty Qimen (keemun) based on the taste Like can we paste for information and work backwards or is there not enough like facts to learn from and reference samples to build that framework to actually blind identify reliably or like specific flavor is? Attributed mainly towards like cultivation or it's from processing, Yeah.

Per · 48:24

Or this is from this fertilizer? This is natural versus synthetic or this is tana shelf shaded or direct covering. Very complicated question, yeah, but I think. It's a very good question. And I think it's extremely difficult. First and foremost, I know for a fact that this is possible when it comes to Sencha because I know people and including myself, we've been doing things like, you know, tea guessing and those kind of things.

Per · 48:47

And, and sometimes you can even tell, oh, this is this person's tea. And sometimes you can even see, you know, the tea leaves because tea leaves they're, they kind of give away. Actually, if you have a whole leaf tea and you do tea evaluation and you're using all the necessary tools or utensils for that, there's no source of like misinformation and you basically get what you get.

Per · 49:09

Basically, when it comes to matcha, it's milled. It gets really tricky. I think it's a very good question. Yeah. Like you said, like they'll name a few different brands or a tea producers there. I think. I mean, there's certainly some degree of style there.

Per · 49:21

I mean, like you mentioned Suji Song, for example, I think there's a richness in this matcha that is it's quite remark remarkable indeed. I think it's more, I mean, well, he has his he has his peculiar ways of fertilizing his tea farm. So I mean, but I think it's more those techniques actually, rather than, you know, the soil itself. So if you want to, you know, you want to backpack it or like to see what what's what.

Ryan · 49:47

I think that's a such a good point. Tea leaf is such. A good giveaway when it comes to information feels like cheating because you actually. Look at tea leaves before you eat the tea. So you get a lot of data just from just by looking at the tea leaves basically. So yeah, you can't do that for matcha. Maybe for tencha, Definitely, yeah. Potential is also like.

Per · 50:11

Fragment that you. It's hard to see like the the shape of the leaf, like it's hard to deduct, like, you know, different processing methods or cultivars. Anyway, I think, I guess, I guess maybe. That I feel like so much is more about well, it is, you know, there's a cultivar difference and then it is about how you cultivated the fields basically. So because there's no rolling process, right? So, and when it comes to teas like sencha, that's that actually affects the tasting flavor a lot like how it's processed basically and how it's rolled, whereas in much of there's no rolling process.

Per · 50:44

So I'd say the percentage of, you know, what happens at the tea farm as opposed to tea factory is when it comes to much as more about the tea farm, even more about the tea farm because it's not as processed as as so. But having said that, I don't know, maybe I mean, it's like people.

Per · 51:03

And this goes for Japan in in in many ways actually. So you know that back in the days when the, the tea from Togano was like considered to be the, the real tea and all other teas were like, you know, copies and they did these tea and guessing games. And when that was popular, I think, you know, people are trying to copy Togano basically.

Per · 51:28

So they're basically doing or trying to do the same thing. And I think that's happening now again, maybe if people become even more experimental, whatever, try to do different things with matcha. I mean, that could be like any, anything from cultivars to, you know, processing.

Per · 51:43

And I mean, there might be things we can do here. We don't realize it because, you know, it's been because everyone's trying to do the same thing. And that's how they've been doing things basically for, for, for decades or even longer. So there might be ways of making your matcha taste a little more unique.

Per · 51:58

If we're excluding flavoring here, basically we're saying that it has to be, you know, only the taste from tea, not adding any like flavoring the other ingredients. Then I think the, I mean, it might be things you could do, but we're so focused on, or I mean, we as a not maybe I'm not a tea farmer, but I mean tea tea tea producers have been focused on making things kind of more or less in the same way because that's, you know, that's been the definition of a certain type of tea or a way that things have been done.

Ryan · 52:32

There's a lot of tradition in there when you were referring to the period where they're. Doing these guessing games, I know that at some point in history that the Switch, like at some point single origin mattered. People cared. You could say there's market demand for it and it actually was single origin.

Ryan · 52:49

And then slowly over time that did not become the case. So presumably during the Edo period when there were, it was basically a state controlled oligopoly of different families or clans who were given the license to produce tencha and matcha only within Uji. How did, what was that history?

Per · 53:09

And then how did it, how did we get to where we are today where you have all of this blending going on and the concept of origin was lost even though the consumer perception for it was not? Perhaps. I think maybe, maybe. In this case, it's helpful to to realize that I mean or to separate modern, the modern notion of single estate, single origin and why we are enjoying it in the first place from traditional, you know, single origin way of thinking thing. I think when it comes to the Edo period, I think it's a lot of, you know, kind of similar to a brand or something or actually it's, you know, this isn't the

Per · 53:53

feudal. So we don't have an you mentioned there was an oligopoly system. Basically, there are only a few places that are allowed to are licensed to use shading for their for the tea farms basically. So this is not a free market.

Per · 54:08

And I think maybe this is more like actually decided beforehand what's, you know, what's real tea and what's not tea. I mean, regardless of taste and flavor, whereas in the modern world, I think it's more like, OK, so we have back to our central cultivars. We have floral cultivars like Caution. We have, you know, the more classic ones like Elukta and they all taste very different.

Per · 54:31

And I think, you know, we're not saying today that, you know, this book that's the real tea and all other teas are, you know, fake teas during like not good enough. We just say they're different, right? And I think that's a very modern approach.

Per · 54:45

Well, it comes from, you know, things like wine and and also third way coffee, whatever, and has kind of like slowly entered the world of tea or the world of Japanese tea as well. So we see the same phenomenon going on.

Per · 54:58

But this is very recent. So I mean, this has been going on for about 30 years now. So most teas basically were blend. All teas were blends basically. So any of the, you know, we've been talking a lot about cultivars and you mentioned some, you know, tastes and flavors from different cultivars, but essentially cultivars were bred not for the purpose of giving tea a different flavor or taste or something.

Per · 55:21

But actually you have early cultivars, late cultivars and middle ones because you want to spread out your harvest. Basically, if you only have one cultivar, all your tea, it has to be plucked, you know, at the same time, and it's just going to clog your tea factory and your leaves are going to start withering and degrading well before, well, well, long before you you're even able to process everything.

Per · 55:45

So that was the original idea with, you know, called for breeding. Then at some point a few people realized that, hey, wait a minute, they actually taste different. And I mean, this people who were into tea refining and also researchers, they knew this already, but people start realizing, hey, maybe we can do something like they do with, you know, Chateau wines, for example. You have, you know, this Merlot from this particular place and it tastes like this because, you know, and of course, in the world of wine, we have the whole notion of the terroir as well. But just to make it easier for us, I think basically what people want to do was to offer a

Per · 56:19

product or a tea that actually tastes different from all other teas. And maybe you can only produce this in small quantities. So let's say maybe you only get like 20 or 40 kilos a year. But hey, here is a tea that actually, you know, tastes very different from all other teas.

Per · 56:34

And then from there we have now a multitude of, you know, different senchas, a different, you know, green teas. And I think now, because we have all this, we feel like, and especially if you get into tea, let's say if you're, you know, from, from the US or Europe or something, and you start, you know, getting into Japanese tea and you drink a lot of different teas and you explore the differences and you find single cultivar teas and single estate teas.

Per · 56:59

And then at some point you ask yourself, why isn't there any more of this? Because this is so interesting. This is like, you know, but then you have to remember that that's a very new approach to Japanese tea in the 1st place.

Per · 57:11

So only 30 years ago, everything was blends and no one thought about making, you know, single cultivar teas. All this, you know, thinking about enjoying different tastes and flavors, it's a very new thing. So what about the Edo period single estate or single origin teas? Well, first of all, they were very different because they didn't have cultivars.

Per · 57:31

So if we want to call them single estate teas or single origin teas, we can do so, but we have to at least just to get our definition straight, we have to realize that they were not single estate teas in the same, you know, way modern teas are because they didn't have cultivars, they had only had zairai or seed propagated teas. So they were essentially mix of different tea plants, kind of natural blends already.

Per · 58:02

And so I wouldn't expect, you know, if you could travel back in time and go back to the Edo period and try different teas, I wouldn't expect them to, you know, you wouldn't find one tea from with a floral flavor and another one with, you know, first like flavor. I think it did be pretty similar actually in flavor, but the probably was so different because they process it differently.

Per · 58:25

And this is before, you know, standardization and those kind of things. So before tea industry modernity plays, I mean, now we have more or less the same kind of equipment, you know, for or processing machines for, for for producing tea. But I mean, back in the Edo period, this is a lot of handmade stuff.

Per · 58:42

So it'll taste a little different. I mean, this will be like, you know, try to make the same, I don't know, bolognese or something or, you know, any given dish. I. Mean you probably. Make it slightly different from from the way I make it. And even if we try to use this pretty much the same recipe, then it's going to taste a little different. And why is it different?

Per · 59:03

Well, I mean, maybe you're using a different kind of salt and, you know, your spices are from a different place. You know, the meat could be from a different place. I mean, there's so many factors here. And I think back in those days, there's no probably no.

Per · 59:16

I mean, even if there was an oligopoly system, I don't think there was, you know, like a modern institution, you know, people going to all those tea farms, you know, instructing them exactly on how to fertilize the tea farms and so on.

Per · 59:30

I think this is, I mean, information travels a lot slower back in those days. So I think they're going to feel different for a lot of different reasons. But essentially because it's it's handmade, Do we want to call them single estate teas or single origin teas?

Ryan · 59:43

We can, but I mean it's very different thing from what we expect from single estate teas today. Do you know when they started opening up and. Like having tencha brought in from like Wazuka, Ujitawara, Joyo town, like E Day town, because there's a lot of people now that will label like Ujitawara or Wazuka tea and claim it to be Ujicha, which I was originally very skeptical of that claim because a modern single origin lens, it's not from Uji, right? Like how can you call it that?

Ryan · 1:00:14

But then there's this historical argument that it was like the backbone of these blends. What's your take on that? Because to me, I think like, let's just not call something what it's not. Like if it's from that place, let's call it from that place, we can learn what that place is.

Ryan · 1:00:30

It has its own merits and demerits its own style, its own history. So like, what's your take on like even answering like, what is Ujicha right? There's a legal definition, there's the spirit of it, there's consumer perception. What's your take on that thread?

Per · 1:00:45

Well, so the legal definition is it has to. Be well, it's tea from 4 different places essentially, and it's, it's not only from Uji, but the entire Kyoto prefecture and also the neighboring Shiga, Nara, also Mie prefecture.

Per · 1:00:58

So for different prefectures. And I think if you, if you travel to Uji, which by the way, everyone should do, it's a it's a lovely little town and there are a few temples and shrines here well worth visiting as well. And it's very close to Uji's proximity to Kyoto.

Per · 1:01:11

That's right, makes it very easy to to travel there. And so there's really no excuse. But one thing that probably strike you would probably strike you is that, you know, they're not not that many tea farms. If you looked at or if you were to look at the picture, a picture from, you know, central Uji taken in the 50s or something, actually, they did still have quite a lot of tea farms.

Per · 1:01:34

And the reason that they don't have so many tea farms these days is that because of the proximity to Kyoto and also because they have other assets, as in, you know, famous temples and so forth, they have a lot of people traveling there.

Per · 1:01:46

People live there. If you go to mountainous tea grown region place like northern Shizuoka, whatever any, any mountainous part of Kyushu or something, there's no reason to build an outlet or you know, any like commercial urbanization whatever like. There's no.

Per · 1:02:05

Reason to build parking lot for example, but there's actually reasons between the parking lot, maybe you can make more money from, you know, just paving the ground, turning it into a parking lot if you're in Uji. So the whole math surrounding tea farm, tea farming in Uji is very different.

Per · 1:02:22

But even if you go back to, you know, say the 50s or even even pre war times as in before the Second World War, I mean even when they had a lot of tea farms in central Uji, they still wouldn't be able to make that much tea as in, you know, they can't supply the great demand for Uji tea.

Per · 1:02:39

So this is essentially, I mean, they do grow some tea, but Uji is mainly or essentially a name of a brand. It's a tea that is made in a certain style they use. As for the leaf tea from Uji, they use a lot of shaded teas.

Per · 1:02:54

So Uji tea has a sweeter flavor profile if you compare it with the Shizuoka tea, for example, which is more astringent in comparison. So Uji is basically the name of a brand. And I think from a modern perspective, we react to saying, hey, I feel like I'm being lied to because, you know, Uji is a city or like, you know, a location. I wanted Uji tea.

Per · 1:03:17

But you know, then you get this blend and most of it is from Mie, which is like a completely different place. And they actually grow a lot of tea and Mie, but most of it is shipped to Uji instead of getting sold as Mie tea.

Per · 1:03:31

So but that's how you feel because you're a modern person, you're a modern tea enthusiast. That's not how people felt previously because people felt you buy tea. Buying tea is like not buying from a farmer, buying teas, you know, buying tea from a tea refiner, A wholesaler or something, you know, with a brand.

Per · 1:03:49

And the taste and flavor is guaranteed by that person or that company basically. So. And that used to be the main approach to tea, basically, back in the days, the flavor was created by the chashi. By exactly by the chashi, not origin.

Per Oscar · 1:04:06

The tea farmer, right? It's quite interesting. Like there's a. Lot of nuances like in all of these concepts and like it's really what really matters is like single like what like single origin or single in state or for the matter, like we should probably talk about like single factory or like single like plan or Google File.

Per Oscar · 1:04:27

Like there's so many things that's going on. I think single factory is not bad at all actually. Because there is a style and they have all those cooperatives and there's there's always a head of the factory. And he does definitely because it's typically he most often.

Per Oscar · 1:04:41

But anyway, they affect the taste of flavor a lot. I'd say so, But I'm saying it's an interesting thought. I think. I think, you know, the whole way of thinking when it comes to teas like VG, if you're in the tea industry, you don't feel like you did anything bad.

Per Oscar · 1:04:56

It's like you just, you know, it's business as usual. They're like, we've been doing this for hundreds of years and you know, blending is part of it. And now suddenly you have, you know, the single origin people that are, you know, complaining about things like currency and stuff. But it was never an issue.

Per Oscar · 1:05:11

I think actually, maybe I'm being a little cynical here, but I'm thinking back, you know, in the back in the days, and we traveled back in time to the Edo period again when they had the oligopoly system. This means that only a certain number of tea farms can grow shaded tea, right?

Per Oscar · 1:05:28

How do you actually check back in? You know, this is like 200 or something years ago. Yeah. How do you Yeah, that was. Also, my my question too, because like there were three types of chashi, right, that were allowed to excusate the cultivation, but what were the relationship between those chashi and the gardens? Like they have their own gardens or like how did they work? No, so the the number of tea gardens. Actually, if you look at history has like a swung back and forth. So at some point it was like 39, at some point it was 35. So that number has changed, but they all had to be associated with any of those 3 chashi's

Per Oscar · 1:06:04

basically. But I'm thinking that you know what, if you because look at what's happening right now, we have a matcha shortage right now, right? And when things like that happens, quality is, I think it's really hard to maintain quality because a lot of people out there are tempted, you know, to blend their good matcha with bad matcha. Would you notice if you add 1% of whatever you know something is elasticity and?

Per Oscar · 1:06:34

Fungibility in the supply of blended products. Exactly. And I think, you know, it's so. Many things are happening right now that we're completely, you know, thinkable just a couple of years ago, Matcha is supposed to be kind of stored and matured until fall October.

Per Oscar · 1:06:53

That's when you start shipping your matcha and a lot of and matcha producers still do, But I also know that a lot of people just ship their whatever they had in spring because you know, there's a matcha shortage and there's a frenzy now.

Per Oscar · 1:07:08

So suddenly we have young matcha kind of whatever, whatever you want to call it. And that's very regular for for the Japanese tea market. That's one thing. Another thing is that, you know, blends, they're adding more second harvest teas, more fall teas, more teas that are actually not matcha are just other powdered green teas, especially when it comes to, you know, all the blends and so forth.

Per Oscar · 1:07:31

And I think this is just going to get worse and worse in the sense that it's going to be really difficult to tell what you actually have in there. So, but I mean, that said, of course there are reliable people out there still.

Per Oscar · 1:07:44

But if we travel back in time again to the Edo period, what do you do if you have a matcha shortage in the Edo period? I mean, I'm thinking that maybe there's a tea farmer there. Maybe we can do some shading and we can just say that he's associated with us, whatever. I mean, there must have been loopholes. I mean, and how, how do they, how do they control this even, like, do they have tea police or like tea samurai police checking, you know, I think.

Per Oscar · 1:08:11

Yeah, that's some shading. You got some shady business going on there. Yeah, it must be. I mean like because. Like later during that period that there were is they called a hair Tashi that kind of emerge in, you know, outer skirts of Uji area that kind of represent the more, you know, peasant level tea farms that can also do shade the cultivation. So maybe, you know, at some point that kind of got out of control and the government just said, OK, you guys can do it too.

Per Oscar · 1:08:38

I mean if you were associated with the right? People and you know, there might have been loopholes here, but I'm not saying this, you know, I mean, I mean, I don't know for a fact. I'm just thinking that, you know, systems change and governments change and, you know, feudalism is very different from, you know, system. We have each whole system that we have in modern Japan, which is more like capitalism oriented. And I still think that, you know, essentially humans are the same.

Per Oscar · 1:09:05

We're the same. So and we react to whatever happens and you know, in our environment on the market. And just because the market operates differently doesn't mean that, you know, people don't. There's no official. History, but you know.

Per Oscar · 1:09:21

How are we going to, you know, write the history of matcha now? We tend to forget that we're also like, you know, in a way, living in history. Like 20 years, 30 years from now, someone's going to write the book, you know, about the matcha boom or you know, the matcha frenzy that happened the twenty 20s. And how do you write that history? And what what were people drinking? Were people drinking, you know, traditional matcha? Or were they just drinking powdered green teas and just call them matchas?

Per Oscar · 1:09:52

And you know, you know, how do you even do this? So if you go back in time, then we have the official history of the IT says that, you know, there there was like a license system or, you know, you had to be like a designated place where in order to shade your, your tea or tea farm.

Per Oscar · 1:10:09

But you know, it's, it's humans operating not like a perfect it's, I mean, that's my greatest. Critique actually of the traditional system, which I totally respect by the way, and like all these old chashis and blend houses. But it's a system that's set up to remove a very interesting human story.

Per Oscar · 1:10:29

Like the farmers, the processing, the cultivation techniques, the cultivars, right? Like the modern, like if you walk into a traditional blend house, everything about the product positioning and the experience is to abstract away any human decision that was made and give it a poetic name. Even the chashi's aren't that celebrated. You don't see very interesting stories of chashi from this blender blending house or that blending house talking about even the relationship between the flavor and the poetic name, right?

Per Oscar · 1:11:02

There's even a really interesting human story there about why we named it Yame no Shiro or something, or Uji no Shiro, or, you know, all of these different names. Let alone the processing, the blending, the aging, the refining, the production techniques, it all gets erased.

Per Oscar · 1:11:20

It's not the point. And like the specialty movement of the single origin single cultivar products is really ultimately discovering one very interesting human story about the intentions and the decisions that get made at each point.

Per Oscar · 1:11:36

And like, even like with your brand Sanko, right? Like it, it's about these cultivars, it's about these farmers, it's about these stories. We can talk about how Koshin got created and why and how and why it's super interesting. And in the traditional matcha world, it's all erased. It's interesting how that do you see that swinging? Do you see these traditional companies changing the types of narratives that they tell?

Per Oscar · 1:12:01

Because the consumer preference base is very different. I mean, you have a declining Japanese tea ceremony practitioner base. I think even in the last, like, what was it, 15 years, it's moved from 2 million to 1,000,000 in Japan. Like I forget the exact numbers, but it's huge. And it's not growing abroad.

Per Oscar · 1:12:21

So you have a very different consumer base that cares about very different things. Like do you think that switch is going to happen or do you think it's going to be super slow? Like how do you see this evolving? Well, I think first and foremost.

Zongjun · 1:12:34

When it goes to traditional matcha consumption in Japan, it has mainly been for the the tea ceremonies, right? And interestingly, because I've been practicing the tea ceremonies well at some degree. And one thing that I found very interesting was that after a tea ceremony, you always look at the different utensils, the chawan, the tea bowl and, and also the tea whisk and so forth. And, and typically the, the whole conversation is kind of oriented around talking about which style the different things are made in and so forth.

Per Oscar · 1:13:09

But you don't really talk about the matcha so much. So I think matcha has been, of course, it's the center of the tea ceremony, but it's not, you know, it hasn't been enjoyed in the same way as you would enjoy, you know, an old burgundy red or something. It's, you know, it's and I think not like some oolong teas or leaf green teas that are more like inspiring you in their direction of, you know, being poetic, whatever, and you know, gives you a lot of associations.

Per Oscar · 1:13:39

I think matcha has been more simple. And as such, you know, there hasn't been a demand until recently, you know, for great variations or, you know, the story of the farmer behind the matcha. I think that's changing now. And I can definitely see it changing here because I think we already mentioned Horii-san, right? He had Shichimeien.

Per Oscar · 1:14:02

I think that's that's probably the most famous matcha farmer out there. And I think he's probably a sign that everything is about to change or has changed already. I mean, because until a couple of years ago, you'd never hear about any farmer. You only hear about, you know, Marukyu Koyamaen or Yamamasa Koyamaen.

Per Oscar · 1:14:23

Or like you have those refiners or wholesalers, whatever you want to call them that sell them matcha. They have their farmers, obviously, but they were actually very particular about not, you know, letting their farmers, giving their farmers any space and media, for example, whatever because they see it as, you know, matcha.

Per Oscar · 1:14:43

We we're making matcha like their perspectives, like you as a new farmers, you're only making like parts. It's like it's like BMW or some, some car brand. Suddenly, you know, you have all the people that we actually made the you know, this thing for the engine or actually we made, you know this, which typically doesn't happen, right.

Per Oscar · 1:15:03

So in the case of March, I think that has changed a lot in the last couple of years because you have people or farmers like Kiyoharat Siji, you have also just some farmers who have their own like tea cafes or you know, tea places where you can have much of. And that wouldn't happen like 15 years ago or so. This is very new.

Per Oscar · 1:15:26

So it is changing and I think the tea industry has got gotten a little softer, as in I think it's a little friendlier now. They were extremely protective back in the days. And I can feel it too, actually, you know, because I've been here now for I've been in Japan for more than 10 years.

Per Oscar · 1:15:48

And I feel like there is a new generation taking over sort of because a lot of tea wholesalers, they used to be very conservative and very sensitive about. And even for leaf tea too, they wouldn't, you know, want, you know, people to visit their farmers.

Per Oscar · 1:16:05

And, you know, this kind of afraid that, you know, the farmers will just, you know, start selling directly. That's of course 1 thing they're worried about. But also I think that it's, it's almost like a question of ideology or something. It's like for a lot of people in the tea industry, and this includes people with a certification like so I'm a certified Japanese tea instructor. And I think that, you know, for a lot of us, we don't consider Aracha or like roti as a, we don't consider it a product really.

Per Oscar · 1:16:36

So this is like, and not not like religion or, or ideology or anything, but you know, it's something that we're so used to thinking in those patterns and it's a question of definition. So for a lot of people, I think that stretches not only as far as to refining but also to blending, which means that to have, you know, tea farmers appearing on your TV or, you know, talking about their teas or tea farmers selling their teas or tea farmers, you know, being in the limelight basically is something that a lot of people don't approve of.

Per Oscar · 1:17:16

But I think that's changing. It has changed. It already changes because, you know, I think that fortress was breached many years ago now and it's kind of, it kind of feels old and you know, overly conservative to be over protected like that in these days.

Per Oscar · 1:17:33

So I think it's changing. But then again, you don't know because now we have the, you know, the matcha shortage. And I think now people are going to be protected for different reasons because everyone's fighting whatever is left there.

Per Oscar · 1:17:45

And you know, it's going to be harder and harder to sell tea from a certain place. Because I know for a fact, because I've been talking to a lot of farmers and people involved in matcha and they said like actually, so they, they can get matcha, but they don't want the farmers don't want them to, to tell the people that it's from a particular place because they're also selling, you know, matcha to other places.

Per Oscar · 1:18:08

And, and you, you don't want, you know, I think Horii-san, he's different in the sense that he's already got a brand, right? It's his tea and people don't put their own brand on top of his brand in general. It might be exceptions, but and if they do, it's like their brand.

Per Oscar · 1:18:24

And then Horii-san. But let's say if you're not him, if you're another matcha farmer, I think maybe you don't want your name all over the place because people will start comparing prices and, you know, people, especially your wholesalers. And it's a little different from, you know, the overproductive engineer might be a little weird. Yeah.

Per Oscar · 1:18:45

So you because. You might, you know, find. Let's. Say you have a tea shop in, I don't know, let's say somewhere in, in the capital in Europe where they sell a feed from, I don't know, let's say it's in Marukyu Koyamaen. And then they also have the, you know, from a certain farmer that supplies seeds in Marukyu Koyamaen.

Per Oscar · 1:19:02

And that's a little weird position from for, for the farmer and also for matcha maker on my end. And I think they're going to have a problem, like an internal problem. So in order to avoid this from happening, I think a lot of people are going to or a lot of farmers might opt for, especially in places like legit, like traditional places, they might opt for selling their matcha, but with the promise that you don't actually put the name. So we're going to have a lot of single origin teas out there, but we won't be able to tell where they're from or that might be the case.

Per Oscar · 1:19:32

I can't say this is going to happen for sure, but I've seen the trend and I've heard about this phenomenon. So I think it might actually be happening. It's interesting, very interesting. One thing that I'm thinking. About in terms of like.

Ryan · 1:19:45

Really looking into the. Future. Of matcha as a specialty product because it's very much a product of the world considering how many people have real love for it. Is moving part of the value creation closer to the consumer and can we have a very interesting and creative world of people blending matcha?

Ryan · 1:20:03

Because I I refuse to believe and to my knowledge almost all Chashis are old Japanese men. Have any clue what it can suit what a teenager in Saudi Arabia wants, or what someone in California wants, or what someone in Mexico City wants?

Ryan · 1:20:18

It's just beyond the capacity of such a narrow demographic to truly understand the preferences of other people and what would be really cool to see. And I'm one curious what you think the structural barriers are to do have have people do their own shiage processing so they get access to RHR, they have access to the commodities market, do their own shiage processing, blending and if they have the capacity to mill, do their own milling to create hyper localized versions.

Ryan · 1:20:46

Just like we see different coffee roasteries roasting green coffee from all over the world, creating a blend that people like, know their consumers, they can deliver something that they would love. Like what are the structural barriers from that happening? And would it be a good or bad thing for the industry in Japan? First of all, there's so many layers here. I mean the teenager in.

Per Oscar · 1:21:08

Saudi Arabia there or the hipster in California or whatever it was. I think, I mean, it's, it's a positive thing that people discover tea in matcha. But I think that if you look at it from the perspective of a person doing tea ceremonies in Japan, maybe you've been practicing the tea ceremony for 15 years or 30 years or something, and suddenly just find yourself in the position where your matcha is like twice the price, whatever you know, that's for you. That's a very negative experience, right? This might be good for the the tea industry, might be beneficial for the farmers to some degree, but it's not necessarily good news for for

Per Oscar · 1:21:42

everyone, right? So that's one aspect of it. And I think that we tend to overlook very often. And I think, you know, I mean, I'm not saying to people out there stop doing much. I'm just saying savor it a little bit more. I think it's a little like too trendy though. And I think, yeah, pay more attention to, you know, tasting flavor and savor it more and at least don't overindulge. And but I mean, that goes for anything, I suppose. But certainly so for for matcha because it's so popular right now.

Per Oscar · 1:22:07

But then when it comes to, you know, bringing out more different flavors and because, like you mentioned, the teenager in Saudi Arabia and might have a different palette and, you know, the traditional Japanese old man working a tea refining factory.

Per Oscar · 1:22:21

So well, of course, you could, you know, give people stone mills and you can you probably, you know, have a lot of smaller factories. So I think it's kind of happening already because part of the matcha shortage is actually not a well, I mean, now I think we have a real shortage, but the shortage last year was more a stone mill shortage basically. So you have the stone mill working 24/7, basically driven by electricity, but I mean, apparently still not enough. So people are building their own stone mill factories or like Jeff Miller ball mill factories just to compensate for or make up for the for the shortage.

Per Oscar · 1:22:53

But, and I think at some point, yeah, it might be the case that, you know, if you start making more single cultivar matchas and like you get more options if you have if you have your own or you're likely to get more options if you have your own milling factory and you can, you know, choose to import different kinds of matcha made from different cultivar.

Per Oscar · 1:23:11

So it might be positive in the sense that we get more different flavors, if that's desirable anyway, that's, you know, considered desirable. And I think it might be we might be going in that direction. I think also we shouldn't overlook these. We're talking about Japan, obviously. I mean, I've been living in Japan for for a total of 13 years.

Per Oscar · 1:23:28

And I mean, Full disclosure, I'm what a team Japan here. So I mean, I'm caring mostly for the the tea farmers and everyone involved in tea here. But tea is like a huge industry right in spans over several countries. And I think what's happening now, it's like matcha is from having been a Japanese kind of tea now it's kind of an international thing. And you know this huge production, the volumes are huge in countries like China and even countries like Vietnam and Thailand, they're making matcha now. So I think matcha is not something that is entirely Japanese anymore.

Per Oscar · 1:24:03

So and just by that happening, I think the market is like getting more diverse and for good and for bad because I mean, I know that a lot of those and I think most people know that, you know, most of the foreign match is there to supply the lot and the much a lot to demand. And it's not necessarily that the greatest qualities. But then again, that's the beginning of it, you know, might change for reasons that we can't foresee because we're focusing on what's happening right now.

Per Oscar · 1:24:32

It's like in Japan, like people are thinking about, should we maybe quit leaf tea and switch to tencha? Because it seems like the wisest decision to do now. If you have resources to, you know, build a new factory. And if you're young enough to, you know, at least have, you know, the prospect of being able to make tea for a couple of decades to come, then it sounds like the the reasonable thing to do. But then again, what's going to happen in 10 years, 15 years, like 20 years, It's going to be as popular. Oh, you know, and foreign production volumes are going to be like what?

Per Oscar · 1:25:08

Absolutely no idea. So I think it's going to be more diverse, partly because what you said like that people probably going to move the whole distribution system is going to be different. Like people will have their own milling factories. There's no there's really no need actually to meal everything in in Japan.

Per Oscar · 1:25:24

It's actually might actually get better for the quality if it's more freshly new in Paris or Rio de Janeiro, wherever it's supposed to be consumed. So Jen might actually make for make for a more diverse and more interesting matcha market in terms of the the tea production situation with the.

Zongjun · 1:25:46

Whole matcha popularity and matcha boom. Do you see farmers switching to more towards potential production or do you see that kind of popularity kind of transcend or cascade down to, you know, consumptions of sencha or other Japanese at least? How do you see the dynamic that's happening, right? I think a lot of things are happening at the same time. So it's a little hard to say that because. Of a we have BI think there's a lot of things, a lot of factors that we need to take into consideration. One thing is first and foremost, there is definitely a movement among tea farmers that consists of them trying to produce either a tencha or making anything

Per Oscar · 1:26:25

that, you know, can be used for making a powdered version of green tea. So we don't necessarily need to restrict the discussion to traditional matcha, but you know, any, any, any kind of powdered green tea. So that's certainly happening. But I'm also sensing that, you know, I think because of the interest in not only matcha, but I think in Japan in general, Japanese food, Japanese culture, Asian culture, like in many not Asian countries, but also if you're in Asia, like I've been traveling to countries like Indonesia and Thailand to do tea lectures and tea tasting sessions and Japanese culture is extremely popular.

Per Oscar · 1:27:04

Or that's my take on it anyway, after having visited a couple of times. And I think matcha is certainly popular, but I think a lot of people are looking for like the next thing, partly because there's a matcha shortage.

Per Oscar · 1:27:14

So matcha is getting more expensive. And probably, I think because that's how we operate basically as humans, we something that's popular, then we move on to the next thing. And or like very often we explore a similar genre or you know, and I think the difference is of course, like it's of course that when it comes to matcha, you can drink it as a latte or you can mix it with sweets. You can't really do that with sencha, but or kabusecha or gyokuro or any, any of the leaf teas for that matter. So you need a teapot and it's like it's a different process. I think my take on it is that people that drink leaf tea are to a large degree different type

Per Oscar · 1:27:51

of consumer or different type of tea person, but there's also a lot of overlapping going on there. So you can really say for for sure. And I mean, you have people like me, I've been drinking matcha for more than 20 years, but probably been below the radar.

Per Oscar · 1:28:06

But you have those kind of people. I mean, I know I'm not alone here. So I would drink my matcha, you know, just whisk it and enjoy it as it is basically without any, you know, almond milk or whatever people use to mix with their matcha these days.

Per Oscar · 1:28:21

But I think it's, I mean, there's an interest in, there's a growing interest in leaf tea as well. And that's partly, partly, but not entirely fueled by the, the matcha, the matcha boom. So I'd say it's, it probably comes from many different directions.

Per Oscar · 1:28:38

But but certainly, I mean, the popularity of matcha, because it's so ubiquitous, it's like so all over the place, you probably more likely to find people among those matcha drinkers that are like, hey, what's the next thing a lot of people are discovering, hojicha. I think that's probably next thing for a lot of people. Yeah.

Zongjun · 1:28:58

Although I do think the matcha. Trend. I think trend might almost be the wrong word. I think it's going to be a little more sticky. I think most I think you're absolutely right. Yeah, Yep, Yep, because it's someone. We interviewed Erin. Who runs a matcha business, Matcha U in Australia said something that really changed my perspective. She doesn't like a lot of markets. And she said, like the number of young teenagers, especially teenage girls, coming up dragging their parents. Say, mom, dad, I heard about matcha. I want to try matcha.

Zongjun · 1:29:29

I saw it on social media. They're forming a very different relationship with caffeine at their most formative years. If you look at like becoming an adult, like one of the things that we do is we drink caffeinated beverages as at least marked adults, and they're totally skipping over coffee and they're gonna carry that habit into adulthood.

Zongjun · 1:29:49

And if you think about the easiest group of consumers to underestimate, it's this younger demographic who are totally skipping the coffee. And I really. Worry. That Japan and the Japanese tea industry isn't taking it seriously enough because the way it's presented to them are a bunch of, you know, TikTok girlies posting their beautiful drink.

Zongjun · 1:30:14

But I actually think there's a much deeper preference behind this. We'll call vanity consumption and that you know, if they if people, if Japan can't keep up with supply, then it's a really big missed opportunity.

Per Oscar · 1:30:30

I think you certainly have a point here. I mean, that's my feeling too, because I'm the. City from regions a lot and some of them are more keen on exporting and you know, some of them are more kind of in touch with reality if you like or you know, like current trends or see where things are going and leaf is getting more popular, popular too. But I think that you speak to a lot of farmers and people in the countryside in Japan, they, they are already, so especially the places where they make leaf tea.

Per Oscar · 1:31:01

And I've heard this too from, from the Kansai region, for example, with a, you know, a lot of people have succeeded, you know, from producing matcha and matcha is really popular. So the, the farmers who didn't make matcha until now, they feel like losers, right? They're losing, I'm losing out or missing out on this, you know, great opportunity.

Per Oscar · 1:31:21

And that's what we're saying right now. I think hojicha is going to get more popular, tencha is going to get more popular and we just don't see it right now because we're so focused on, you know, what's happening right now and what's big right now. But I think that as you mentioned, you know, the especially younger generations and that's something that I've felt too.

Per Oscar · 1:31:38

Whenever I go overseas, I feel like my audience is I just turned 40 a couple of days ago. But you know, I've been drinking Japanese tea for 20 years now, happily and pleasantly surprised to see that a lot of 20 somethings are showing up and my tea events. And it's not something that I expected really. I feel like, you know, green tea is something that you discover, I don't know, maybe in your late 20s or something. And, you know, after having couple years and there are many, there are many difference for different reasons for entering tea and especially green tea and oolong teas and, you know, pu'er those kind of specialty thing.

Per Oscar · 1:32:17

But then that's kind of John Ross. But I think it could be, you know, for for health reasons, could be because you have an interest in, you know, Asian culture or whatever. But in any case of I felt that something that people, you know, discover when they're at least in their late 20s and you know, they have stable jobs, they got some money to spend, maybe they can travel and they find this new interest. But actually what I do see is that unexpectedly there are a lot of people in their twenties or, you know, like young people. I think it's a very positive thing. And like you said, like or like what's the name again? Erin, the Australian lady that

Oscar · 1:32:48

you talked about, how much are you? Yeah, I mean, she certainly has a point there if people. Are. Skipping coffee, I mean, people don't start drinking coffee when they're, you know, 15 or whatever and start drinking matcha instead.

Oscar · 1:33:03

And we're going to have a completely different world in 10 years from now because those people are going to be 2526 something. And, you know, they will keep exploring the different teas out there. And, and it's certainly interesting.

Oscar · 1:33:16

I think we're living in very interesting times. I remember when I had my second book published in Japan, the bilingual book about Japanese tea. It's a lot about, you know, cultivars and different kinds of Japanese regions with a lot of maps and so forth.

Oscar · 1:33:30

And you know, and. I got so. Much positive response for it by, you know, tea enthusiasts, but I can tell you there weren't a lot of them. It's really popular among people that are really into Japanese tea. But now I think it's very well spread. And now there's an Internet international version of it as well.

Oscar · 1:33:45

They have presence in many different countries. But, you know, I feel like in a way, it was a good timing to write a book like that because now the world is turning, you know, and what has turned like in favor of Japanese tea.

Oscar · 1:33:59

And you see a lot of young people feel that I didn't expect to get into Japanese tea at all in the 1st place. And I mean, I didn't know that I didn't see that one coming. And I think it's a very positive thing. So I mean, if my activities are are any any sign of good things happening, I'd say that you know, things like, well, if you look at the number of books sold, those kind of things, I feel like there's an interest out there.

Oscar · 1:34:23

Certainly, definitely. So for for Japanese tea and it's such a interesting first hand experience. About this whole wave personally, the curiosity of. You know, T or knowledge? Yeah. I think, I think, you know, it's even a lot of my friends, they were like, yeah, it's a very nice book.

Ryan · 1:34:41

That you wrote, but you know who's going to read this? Kind of like interesting. I had the exact opposite impression when I read. I read through. Both of your books and I was thinking, wow, this is fantastic information, but I wish it went 10 times deeper.

Oscar · 1:34:54

Yeah, but I think, you know, that's going to start flipping. Wouldn't it be more people? Well, I can actually. Tell you a secret? Well, it's not going to be a secret. I totally hear in. The podcast, but I'm working on it.

Zongjun · 1:35:06

Yeah, very cool. Nice. Wonderful. Very excited for that. Maybe it's a complete stand. I mean, we can. We should definitely. Do this again, I'd be more than happy. To join you guys again if you, but we'd love that opportunity. Thank you.

Ryan · 1:35:21

Yeah, it's we we learned so much from. Your perspective. I've been kind of. Incubating a few ideas in my head, and I really loved hearing your reaction to some of them. Thank you so much, Oscar, for coming. Yeah, thank you so much.

Ryan · 1:35:33

And. I'll see you guys again. Really. Appreciate your time and thank. You to our listeners as well and if you enjoyed. This podcast, please consider sharing it with a friend and we'll see you on the next one. Thanks in the future.