Green Tea Farm !

I've always wondered, were Green Tea grows and how it looks like. I've tried Green Tea for the first time in 1996 in Germany. Some people like it, others don't, but still, it was interesting to find out...

Green tea grows as plants, like the one above. Light Green leaves, means this year leaves. Old leaves are kind of dark green. The ones needed for the tea, are the most young ones. The leaves to be picked for Tea are the biggest ones...and i've soon discovered that you can pick small leaves, in group of three, to make green tea tempura. Green Tea tempura means that you actually put the leaves in the tempura cream and then deep fry them. We do something similar in europe with Pumpking flowers, just to give you a rough idea....

Lucky enough, after training, i became an expert (or almost)...and I was ready for the analysis of the leaves and their picking...

It took about 40 minutes or so to pick a basket full...

a basket like this, after drying, yields about half fist of dried tea. So, after picking, the longer process is to treat the leaves. First you need to take a big bunch of leaves and just...smash them in your hand. You actually try to squeeze them into a ball and roll them for a while, so that all the leaves becomes small balls. While doing so, you let some fall on a hot plate...

The procedure of rolling and drying has to be repeated multiple times and it will take about one hour of manual work before the leaves are completely dry.

Once done, the leaves, should look like the ones below...

When they get this look, they are ready for storage...or .... tea! Tea made from just-dried leaves have a nicer taste, kind of sweet compared with other green tea you normally buy.

I'm not a big fan of Tea, I usually like more to have coffee, but, next time i will take a sip of green tea, at least, i know how it's made and i might appreciate it a little more :)...