If someone asked you “When did you last drink some really good green tea?”, how would you reply? For Japanese people, they might say “Earlier today.”
Green tea is everywhere here. Walk into a convenience store or sit down in a restaurant, and there it is, affordable, reliable, healthy and delicious. But does this simple day-to-day experience convey the full charm of tea?
Doesn’t the world of tea have much more to offer? We have turned from the world of education, to the world of tea. Why did we move from one field to a completely different one? The inspiration came by chance, while drinking some green tea abroad.
The realization that our perception of tea is not the same as others’, that the tea we thought we knew, we don’t really know at all. We decided, then, to start taking tea seriously. First, we worked hard to earn qualifications as tea instructors, a tradition dating back hundreds of years.
At the same time, we travelled throughout Japan, thoroughly sampling all the wide variety of tea that the country has to offer.
Here and there we wandered, from tea shop to tea shop. Later, we began to wonder what the growers of the tea had to say about their craft, so we began to visit tea plantations regularly, to speak with them.
Drawn deep into the world of tea, we became attracted to something even more special – organic cultivation. We spoke with farmers who grow their tea without relying on chemical pesticides or fertilizers, preferring to use the local soil, flora, and fauna.
Looking back, maybe this was a natural path for us to take, given our experiences farming in Brazil and working in environmental conservation in the UK. With the help of our partners, the organic tea growers of Japan, Saudade Tea has taken a first, small step on a new and exciting journey. We hope our future allows us to share the pleasure of fine organic green tea with all the people of the world, and perhaps to one day create a global “Green Tea Culture.”
