Japanese tea - mainstream vs artisan 1

To me, Japanese culture represents "together we stand strong".

It is like the movie "Matrix" - it is about the collective action - everybody doing the same without questioning.

To the western world, this can be hard to digest. 

Yet, under this uniforming kind of culture, Japan becomes very good at producing at very high standard almost without fail. 

Everything has two sides. 

The other side of this uniformity is the culture can lack pioneering spirit. 

Don't get me wrong. There are definitely innovations in Japan. However, if the innovation is too "out there", it can easily be dismissed prematurely as it is out of norm. 

Tea production is one such case. 

We love Japanese tea for the high quality consistently appearing across from low end to high end tea. 

However, you might have noticed, Japanese is all about green tea.

Any tea producers trying to create black tea, oolong, or simply making green tea differently are doing hair raising businesses. Their income maybe affected because of such creative spirit.

Today we are in Hamamatsu, about 1.5 hrs by express train from Shizouka, Japan.

We are guided to see Tarui-san and the tea plantation and production facility started by Tarui's father back in the 1970s.