November 2019 Newsletter
- d:matcha farming（by Chisei T. )
We can harvest tea three times in a year. Autumn harvesting indicates the third harvest of the year. It is very important to make the autumn tea stems thick to supply nutrients from the roots for the first new buds of the year and also to take away autumn tea leaves so as to get only new young tea leaves for the next spring. But autumn tea is not tasty because it was not covered and it is too mature.
Recently, many matcha confectioneries are made from autumn tea leaves.In d:matcha, we only harvest autumn tea leaves to prepare for the next year, we don't use them for our products.
- d:matcha: about tea training（by Natsuki S.）
We had a tea training last month. The purpose of the training was to increase our tea skills and to widen our knowledge of Japanese tea. We tried "sonogi-tea" which is produced in Higashi Sonogi, Nagasaki, and "gyokuro" which is produced in Hoshino, Fukuoka. We learned the differences with Wazuka tea. Both tea have fresh aroma and have a milky taste. This is a picture of what we tasted. It was very exciting and we realized that learning tea is a long journey. Therefore we have to keep training by ourselves . Anyways, we realized that we really love tea.
- d:matcha future（by Daiki T.）
In October 9th 2019, I joined the “agricultural week” in Makuhari Messe. We, Japanese people, especially in the countryside, are facing the lack of labor resources because of the aging society. I wanted to learn about the new technologies to solve this issue and I am excited about new things and new challenges. I was really surprised with the drone technology. There are over 10 companies from all over the world such as “Nileworks” that show a lot of attractive presentations. By using a Nilework drone and pointing out on the map by an Ipad, farmers can spray pesticides more efficiently and spread fertilizers and seeds. The drone can calculate the amount by using the data before they sprayed, so farmers can minimize the costs of the agricultural resources. The cost, 1 million yen per year, is reasonable compared to hiring one person.
In my opinion, especially for the rice farming, the drone can work well because the scale is one of the most important elements of rice farming.
However, in a mountain site like Wazuka, I think it is a different story because geographical scaling is impossible. I think connecting with each customer is the key for us. More machines are required for other farming, and more and more people will require food made by people they can trust. They also want to involve themselves in the production process..
We, d:matcha, are utilizing technology such as analyzing soil and the nutrition level of each tea (all our teas have much higher amino acids which gives a better sense of umami than average tea in Japan!) and focusing on how we can create a long term relationship with our sincere customers.
