The perfect cup of Japanese green tea

Mr. Nakayama is a third generation tea farmer in the Higashisonogi region of Southern Japan. He farms ten hectares of green tea plantation and showed me around his fields with views across the valley to the Omura Sea. The farm is in rural Japan and a world away from the frenetic Japanese city lifestyle, but can be reached from Nagasaki in less than 2 hours. As I explored the tea plantation, the air was still with no sound but the birds, and it seemed for a moment the neon and noise of city life had vanished.

The finest green tea

Higashisonogi produces the best green tea in Japan; something Mr Nakayama is keen to emphasize .In fact the region won the Best Green Tea award in 2017 and 2018 at the Japan Green Tea Awards for their Tama Tea. My visit to this community is part of an agricultural tourism scheme by the Higashisonogi Green Tea Tourism Association to bring rural experiences to an urban community. This includes showing visitors the best of…