Work report since the last blog was updated.

We did this year’s last tea picking for "Autumn and Winter-Bancha”, or coarse tea. The left picture shows First-grade-tea.The right picture shows bags that each can hold 30kg of tea leaves. As you can see, the product size depends on the material size. 《Autumn and Winter-Bancha is made of tea leaves which are pruned in order to make tea trees beautiful during the end of autumn.》

This picture shows the process of “Edge trimming ”, which means pruning the side of tea trees.

This picture shows the process of “Autumn skiffing”, which means pruning the top of tea trees. If the pruning process is too early tea sprouts will grow too first, while if the process is too late, the sprouts will be ruined because of the cold. So we have to do it at the perfect time. The pruning “timing ” and “hight” influence the quality of First-grade-tea next spring.

This picture shows weeding around our tea plantation (causeway). We use cutting machines called “Beaver ” in the Kagoshima dialect .

This picture shows protection measures against frost. We pulled sprinklers in the tea plantation to the appropriate position, and saw if they worked. We definitely need to protect tea trees from frost damage. Sprinklers might spray water over cars, so we covered them with nets. We are in the process of tea plantation maintenance at this moment.