The other day I went to Yame, Fukuoka prefecture.
Yame is a village which locates about an hour’s drive from Fukuoka city and famous for the production of tea leaves.
In mountains stood a large house called a culture center for Japanese tea, where the visitors can experience green tea processing, matcha powder making, and have lunches made of tea leaves and local vegetables.
To prepare commercially available green tea, tea leaves have to undergo long process.
There, the process was simplified and visitors can enjoy it for about half an hour.
The tea leaves had been steamed beforehand and put on a plate. We rub them gently for five minutes and dry them by microwave oven for one minute.
This process was repeated five times.
The last microwaving time was two minutes.
And finished!!
The tea was not so good as commercially available ones (lol)
However, after the experience my palms smelt of green teas and looked clean.
Tea trees are having new leaves and we can enjoy shin-cha (freshly made green tea) soon.
