tea is funny

I went to Beppu in Oita Prefecture.

In Beppu, a young 23-year-old girl works as a tea brewer under the name of hitofuki, but she also makes tea only on Fridays and Saturdays while doing other work. Moreover, from 18:00 to 23:00 at night.
It seems that many of the customers are young people who come to eat and drink.

There are many interesting things on the tea menu, and I think the selection is excellent. All teas are gathered from all over the country with a strong aroma that will shock you.

Among them, Oolong tea from Shizuoka, Yuzu from Nagasaki, Daidai Hojicha, Benihikari Japanese black tea, Oita Nakatsu post-fermented bancha, etc. were very unique, and they went directly to the person who made them to learn about the site and brewed them.

The teapot is a glass teapot and the teacup is a wine glass. The interior is dark and just like an elegant bar. I was surprised as I normally drink from a white porcelain cup. The white teacup is used to see the color of the tea.

I am living such an occupational disease every day, but when I think about it later, I can't see the color of the tea in the dark store. It was a device that sharpened other senses as much as it was invisible, such as the warmth that was transmitted.

Come to think of it, the tea room is also dark, and drinking in the dark may make the scent and the senses of the drinker more sensitive and sharp.

One thing I noticed here is that the taste and aroma are sharp and easy to understand, and this is clearly different! We may need to make tea to some extent. Of course, with natural farming methods without fertilizers and pesticides.

The tea she selected was clearly different from any other tea, and it was very fragrant and easy to understand. A distinctly different tea to increase tea lovers. I realized the importance of widening the entrance at the beginning. . However, the difficult thing is that the tea that people feel is "clearly different!" is usually fertilized to bring out the umami and aroma in addition to the improved breed tea.

I wondered whether it would be possible to achieve this with natural farming methods or native tea plants, and whether I should aim for it in the first place.

If you compare it to a horse, breeding tea is a realllllmino Thoroughbred horse. It is a high-quality, strongest horse that has been carefully selected. On the other hand, all native teas are hybrids, and I don't know how many horses they have crossed with various things. He's short-legged, not fast, small and sluggish like a donkey, but he's deeply rooted in the land.

The characteristics of our tea are often said, but it is a dry, hard to understand and ambiguous thing like Kyoto cuisine. It's not glamorous, but I personally think it's a nostalgic tea that makes Japanese people return to being Japanese. I feel that there is really a feature that the more you chew, the more you taste.

However, I've always wanted to make a wide variety of teas, and maybe one day I'll be able to make teas that are "clearly different!"
Please smile when you do so.

And I hope that the number of tea brewers will increase all over the country, and that the number of places where people can casually drink tea will increase.

Click here for hitofuki's Instagram