Friday, April 21, 2017

Some Japanese green teas fertilized with ... sugar cane!

Earlier this year, the online book club I'm in read the book Queen Sugar by Natalie Baszile. I know that it's also a drama series, which I haven't watched, but I very much enjoyed the book that centered around a young woman who inherited a sugar cane farm in Louisiana. For that reason, I was particularly delighted when I heard from Kei Nishida of Japanese Green Tea In, a new company that imports some of the highest-grade green teas in Japan—teas that are grown using sugar cane as a fertilizer! This process is called the "Chagusaba Method," and I was naturally eager to try these teas, which soon arrived in some particularly lovely packaging.

The first of the teas I tried was the Issaku Premium Japanese Green Tea. As soon as I opened the packet, I inhaled a whiff of what was clearly very fresh green tea. I used a filter bag to steep these bright green leaves, and the result was a super smooth tasting green with a very rich mouth feel. And rare for a green, I found no astringency in this tea. It was terrific!

Next I tried the Gokuzyo First Crop Japanese Green Tea. This tea had a lighter, more subtle green tea taste, but as with the other tea, I was delighted by the fresh taste and absence of any astringency. I think that lingering astringency you get with some greens is one of the reasons more people don't drink green tea, so this was a wonderful green and one I am quite happy to be able to recommend. And if, like me, you're intrigued by the idea of tea grown with sugar cane as a fertilizer, click here to learn more about this process!
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2 comments:

  1. I would never have expected to see sugar cane used as fertilizer, but it evidently works well!

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  2. Sounds like nice teas. Sugar cane as fertilizer sounds interesting. I'm off to read your link.

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