Green tea producers of Kesen district learn how to plant seedlings in Rikuzentakata, Iwate, on Wednesday, June 27.
OFUNATO, Iwate Prefecture – Fans of Kesen-cha, grown in Kesen district in Iwate Prefecture hit by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, are striving to restore its production by providing seedlings and decontaminating tea plantations irradiated by the Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant accident.
Kawasaki Co., a Shizuoka-based manufacturer of tea processing plants, donated 2,000 seedlings of Yabukita and Sayamakaori green tea breed to an agricultural cooperative in Ofunato, Iwate (JA Ofunato), on Wednesday, June 26, and taught farmers how to grow seedlings before transplantation.
“We regret that the number of green tea trees in the Kesen district declined and seedlings were lost by tsunami,” said Yasuo Edamura, president of Kawasaki which previously supplied tea processing machines to the area. “We hope they will preserve the history of Kesen-cha by carefully growing the seedlings we offered.”
In June 2012, Iwate prefectural government requested Kesen-tea producers to refrain from shipping products, as the amount of radioactive materials in the products exceeded the safety standards. Fearing that Kesen-tea production could fade away, supporters established a group to protect Kesen-tea in July 2012 to back up farmers’ efforts to resume production such as by decontaminating tea plantations.
Tsukasa Kikuchi who heads the group said they will take care of the seedlings and make efforts to resume sales of Kesen-tea as soon as possible, in order to protect the history of Kesen-tea which continues from the Edo period.
Kesen district is known as the northern limit for green tea production in Japan, except for Aomori Prefecture which produces hand-grown green tea but does not have a tea processing factory.
(June 27, 2013)