Rows of perfectly aligned tea plants in Japan

Just before leaving Japan for China, here is a last glimpse of the landscape shaped by tea. Here, the rows of tea plants are precisely aligned. All is in perfect order, with a few organised clumps here and there, as if to underline the overall harmony. What I love most are the subtle nuances of green, the different shades of the same colour, a touch more yellow where the shoots are still young, slightly darker green where the leaves have recently been plucked.

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Yabukita: the most popular cultivar in Japan

While all tea plants belong to the camellia family, you know that there are different cultivars within that family. Here in Japan, the tea plant most commonly grown is Yabukita. It accounts for 85% of the tea crop, unlike in other tea producing countries, where many different varieties cohabit.

Yabukita is easy to recognise with its long, straight, intense green leaf. It also has its own way of growing, very straight, reaching up for the sky.

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In Ryogôchi: high quality Gyokuro and Sencha teas

A typhoon has just swept through Japan, from the south to the north. I don’t know what delayed it, because it was very late; typhoons normally hit Japan in September. Violent winds flip your umbrella inside out and rain drenches you from head to toe.

It seems I didn’t choose the best day to visit Ryogôchi and admire these mountains, where some very high quality Gyokuro and Sencha teas are grown. However, this abundance of clouds does add to the mystery of the place. Although the village itself is slightly hidden, along with the river Okitsugawa, you can still make out some shapes, and it is very Japanese to suggest, rather than to assert.

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Kyoto: a city where time stands still

I am writing this in the city where time stands still, where thousands of temples are hidden, where the gardens are of moss or of stone, but always invite contemplation. Here, everything is silent, beautiful, refined.

Those on a journey of self-discovery can loose themselves among the narrow paved streets. Will you see reflected in the surface of the stream the geisha about to cross the bridge, her face whitened with rice powder and protected from the sun by a delicate parasol? Will you hear the clicking of her pretty wooden clogs? They echo to the beating of a heart: perhaps mine, perhaps yours. This is Kyoto.

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