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Is black the new green for Japan's flagging tea farmers?
With coffee and bottled tea cutting into their potential profits, harvesters in Japan are dabbling in the less-regulated production of black tea.
Suzuki thinks the Jikocha Summit, now an annual event, helped start to popularize wakōcha again because it allowed producers to share ideas and strategize on how to promote the tea to consumers. Guttridge-Smith says he has seen a variety of home-built oxidation machines, which means each person’s process is different from their peers’ — a factor contributing to the wide range of flavor profiles available among Japanese black teas, which can be anything from chocolatey to fruity to malty or even floral. Harashima takes advantage of his region’s high elevation and unique terroir to produce about 10 types of black tea with a wide range of tastes depending on cultivar, harvest season, oxidation level and other factors.
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