The crop

Living in Shizuoka prefecture has certainly raised my awareness of the intricacies of this cash crop: Tea. The early leaves are hand-picked in April, and then the second 'harvest' is usually in mid-May, and done by machine. The hand-picked first leaves are 'premium' and are processed, packaged blended and sold accordingly.

My office is in a building next to a 'chabatake', or tea field, and the first (noisy) machine harvest coincides with the first days warm enough to keep our office windows open. Luckily this field was done in two days, and I caught the harvesters in action from my window:















The cutting tool is a two-man gasoline powered hedge clipper that automaically bags the leaves, although it is usually a couple working together rather than 'two men'. The A/C will be on by the summer harvest...