Meanwhile, the preparations at the organic tea garden of the Watanabe family for the Kabuse Shincha are in full swing. Yesterday Mrs. Goto, who works with Mr. Watanabe, already sent us photos, taken for us by Mankichi’s son Keita Watanabe in his tea garden.
The island Yakushima lies deep in the South of Japan, even further south of Kyushu Island than the other producing regions in the prefecture Kagoshima. It is located approximately 200km south of the city Kagoshima. In Yakushima, the tea bushes are nationwide the first to sprout. So, Yakushima is, in a manner of speaking, an oasis for the tea sort Shincha.
In the picture taken by Mankichi Watanabe’s son on 4th April, you can see not only that the tea bushes for the Kabuse Shincha are already being shaded with black nets – half of the work of affixing the nets is done. You can also see that at this early time the young sprouts are already well visible. Additionally, the tea garden’s light green colour tells us that the tea bushes have begun to sprout by now and are visibly forming beautiful buds, which will be used for the Watanabe Kabuse Shincha 2017.
All the more astonishing is that the tea garden parcel which you can see in the picture, is the one where the bushes for the tea variety Asatsuyu are cultivated, because these bushes aren’t even the first ones to sprout at Watanabe tea garden. No, the tea bush variety Kuritawase begins even earlier to form new sprouts and buds. So, it won’t be long until Watanabe Kabuse Shincha 2017 can be harvested!