Why Japan NEEDS this kind of Tea - Cherry Yamakai

Hey teaheads! This is Don from Mei Leaf. Now, we know that Japan is famed for producing some of the finest teas in the world, and historically has a major, long tradition in green tea production. So everything I'm about to say has to be heard within that format, right? I recognize the history and the tradition of Japanese green teas, and I love them. There is a problem in my mind, and that problem is actually borne out in the numbers. You can see that the popularity of the fine Japanese teas, especially in the domestic market, is reducing. Farmers are leaving fields abandoned. It's an extremely precarious state of affairs. I think, and I've said this in other videos, that the reason for that is because Japan is so focused on creating a high-quality standard, and that the quality markers are so defined as to what they must be, that they start to corral the teas into more and more restricted profiles, restricted experiences, whereby the things that are celebrated in Japanese green teas are... well, all teas are made to try to elevate those quality markers, and therefore you lose character. You lose experimental teas. You lose a certain oddball nature to tea production, which I think is so valuable, because that experimental nature brings about new trends, brings about new tastes. It starts to invigorate excitement in tea drinkers. So again, I caveat all this by saying I recognize the long, deep history of Japanese tea tradition, and I recognize that I am just one voice in a sea of other voices around what makes great tea. I think that Japanese green tea production is heavily focused on things like cup color you know, wanting it to have that sort of milky, jade-dew quality in terms of scentures, and brothiness and umami. How can you maximize the brothiness, that savory-to-sweet deliciousness, that theanine buzz that we all love, and how can you get that beautiful, vibrant, sort of mysteriously sort of milky and jade-like color in the liquor? And if you can do that you've hit quality markers. You know you're going to get high-priced teas, and people are going to love those teas, and they're going to be very desirable. But as all the producers try to achieve the same thing you start to lose the excitement. I think that this tea here in front of me, which we're calling Cherry Yamakai Sen Cha, is an example of where I would love Japanese teas to explore. You know, the direction upon which I think Japanese tea culture should explore in order to reinvigorate its market. The Yamakai Cultivar, which is the cultivar of this tea, is a tea cultivar that was developed in the 1960s, and was considered to be not a great cultivar amongst the sort of tea cognoscenti, the connoisseurs out there, because it was a bit too funky, a bit too fruity, a bit too sort of wild in terms of flavor. It didn't conform to the sort of more exacting ideas of what a really high-quality Sen Cha should be in terms of cup color, and in terms of taste. Especially unshaded, because when you unshade it you're not bringing out any more Umami. When you shade it you bring out more Umami. So if you unshade the Sen Cha is it going to have enough of that brothiness? The Yamakai Cultivar was considered to be a lesser cultivar, from my understanding. But when I tasted this tea on the tasting table this year I was just taken aback. Obviously, I taste blind, so I don't know what the cultivar is. I was taken aback by something unique about it, something which just stood out. It was like, "... Oh! This is doing something different." Then I found out it was the Yamakai, and I did more research into that cultivar, and it makes me really think, you know, if only some of these more funky cultivars, and more funky styles of tea, were allowed to be produced, or were celebrated more, then I think the whole outlook for Japanese tea culture would be brighter. Let's take a look at this tea, and quickly scope it. This is from May 2024. Cultivar is the Yamakai Cultivar. This is from Tenryu in Shizuoka in Japan. Picking on this is young leaves, heavily rolled, but not too broken, and not too heavily steamed, as you can see. So very, sort of, intact leaves. Elevation is around 300 meters. Let's check the temperature on this. It's a bit hot. Come on. Tell me what you are. 90. All right. Well, this should be okay. We're going to warm up this Kyusu, and we're going to get going on this tea. Let me know your thoughts. I know that probably there's a bit of controversy about what I'm saying. Some people are going to say, no, hey, Japanese culture have got it down. They know what they're doing. Don't mess with it. But I just think that you can see that just the enthusiasm, especially among young people in Japan, for these fine teas is waning. A lot of old farmers are abandoning their fields. A lot of the new generation are not taking them up. Now, there's a trend for new generation farmers coming out, and I hope that this continues. I hope that they celebrate these more oddball cultivars, and I hope that they celebrate other quality markers. Not just cup color and umami, but what are those spiky, funky, crazy things. Now, I understand that when you start to... Oops! That was messy. When you start to go into those territories you run the risk of creating teas that are undesirable. Teas that lack balance, that lack elegance, that lack singularity of character. You run the risk of sort of making teas that taste too funky, too sort of stewed, all over the place. That's just the risk of it, right? That's why China, not to make too many comparisons, but just to say, China, bigger country, more experimentation. You get all sorts of craziness, but when you get a great batch, wow! You get a great batch. I hope that my memory serves me correctly, and this is a great batch of a Yamakai. Here we go. Funk central. Cherry shortcake. Sakura blossoms. Almost like concrete pavement note to it, which is something that I pick up in... I very rarely pick up in Japanese teas. Like a concrete note to it. So it's got a grounding quality, almost to the point of saying earthy, but not earthy. Just like in concrete. I'm getting kombu. So there is that umami. It's there. I'm getting dashi. So it's got that broth. I'm getting porridge. I'm getting like dill syrup. So I'm getting all sorts of notes that I wouldn't normally... Some of them I wouldn't normally expect to find in a Japanese green. Crab gets first go. Right. Let's see how the funk emanates from this Kyusu. I mean, I don't want to overstate the point. It still smells... I mean, if you smelt it you'd go, that's a Japanese Sen Cha, right? You smell the umami. I've got the dashi. I've got the kombu. I've got that savory, porridge-y note to it. Okay? But it's just those little funky elements. Like candied rose petals. Like flavored erasers. Childish things like smelling like scented erasers. So it's got like a rubbery note to it, and loads of cherry. Cherry shortcake. Cherry-fragranced, yeah, sweets. And this funk. Okay, so again, I run the risk, always, of alienating people, but I'll say it anyway. I'm picturing like a fruit and meat stew. But not like beef. Like a... Okay, so imagine like a chicken soup. So you're getting that umami, but then you've thrown in a load of like red dates, and cherries in there. Maybe like a cherry and pork stew, or something. It's just in the background it's like a bone broth-y, but fruity... Now, and this is the point. I can imagine that for a lot of, sort of, Japanese tea tasters, especially more the traditional type, they'll go, oh, that's... No. That is too much, right? We want the umami, but we want it to be less punchy, and less sort of like, you know, off-piste. But I love it. I absolutely love it. It reminds me of like a Luan Gua Pian, like a melon seed green. You know, there's like... It's almost got like a stew-y kind of quality to it, and most people go, oh, stewed and green tea. Two words that shouldn't go together. But when just poised in such a way it just intrigues, and excites, and does something different. I'm all about that. Something different. All right. I should have picked a different so you could see the color. The color of this liquor... Why didn't I think? This is going to be silly, but let's do it anyway. The color of that liquor is definitely more vibrant lime green than you would say most, sort of, top-grade Sen Cha should be. It's the word should that I'm reacting against here, because why should it? Cheers everybody. Thick, soft, hydrating, cherry, sakura blossom. I feel like I'm surrounded by like a... yeah, blossoming sakura trees, and I'm having like candied cherries. It's so cherried in my mouth. That rubber note is there as well. Now, a lot of times people will say... Man, I'm making a mess today. A lot of times people will say that if a green tea tastes like sakura blossom it's old, and I know what they mean. When you have an old green tea, especially an old ... even Chinese, Japanese and Chinese green tea, you pick up this very distinct, sort of, sakura blossom smell. Which is not unpleasant, but just sort of isn't tell-tale, so I know this is a bit old. This is different. It's almost like candied. It's almost like they've taken the sakura blossoms and then they've sugared it, so it's meant to be eaten. It's brighter. It's more vibrant. But again, I can imagine it being like, Oh no, we don't want that. I'm picking up like a celery top. No. Celery. Green apple. Pomelo zest. I mean grapefruit. Grapefruit. Pocari Sweat. If you've ever had Pocari Sweat, like this isotonic grapefruit drink, it's so Pocari Sweat. Oh, I love that. Grapefruit. Cherry. Sponge cake. Bitter hit, but that is what leads to that grapefruit zest. You can't have the grapefruit zestiness without having that little bit of grapefruit bitterness to it. But it's so poised. This is the point. I can imagine taking a tea like this, this cultivar, and not treating it exactly in the right way. You could go too far in one direction, and it would be a lower quality tea. I can understand the safety of choosing cultivars that you know are going to just nail those quality markers that you love. We lose the excitement. We lose that unpredictability. We lose that Je Ne Sais Quoi that you have when you taste teas like this, that just bring about a whole level of excitement, that can bring in tea drinkers. Again, especially younger generation tea drinkers that want to be excited, that don't want to just be told, this is what quality is. Because I am sure... Now I really messed up. That's 99 degree water. So I'm brewing at 90, right? I think if I brewed it at 80 it would be even lower, in terms of that grapefruit hit, but I actually really like it. Maybe I prefer it at 90, but now that's 100. That's going to be a problem. Okay. Just put some cold water in the kettle. Now we're up to 81 degrees, and we're going to brew this Cherry Yamakai again. I don't want people to feel like I'm not giving enough respect to the tea. I would love it if more teas like this appeared every year. Again, this is the impact that consumers can have. If you love these kinds of teas, if you like me are looking for teas... Look, you can still have all of those amazing, brothy Japanese teas. That's not to say they go away, but let's just broaden it. Let's take other quality markers. Let's say, hey, we like fruity teas. We like teas with a bit of punch. We like a slightly fermented, crazy note in our tea. We're happy to have cup color that looks a bit more green, or a bit more yellow, or a bit different. We're happy for that. Celebrate that. If you, like me, want that then buying these kinds of teas tells the producers that they should keep going. Bear in mind that these older cultivars from the 1960s, if they're not popular, if they don't receive the market attention, then what happens when they get old and the farmers want to replace them? They're going to pull them out and replace them with cultivars that are popular, right? And so, again, you just start to homogenize the whole taste of tea. It sort of reminds me of, of course, a Japanese tea. There's enough brothiness. Let me just state, there is still brothiness in this, just to sort of underpin and warm up all of these fruity notes. But it's much lower than a lot of other teas that we have in our collection, and I think that that's what makes it work. It's that completeness of character. It's a consistency. This is like taking a Lu An Gua Pian, Melon Seed Green, and meshing it with a Japanese green tea. It's like got a hybrid quality to it. Mmm! And that cherry shortcake note just comes through. All right, let's smell the empty cup. The mouthfeel is quenching. Light quench, and then savory, but then moves to sweet, and then it's got this juiciness. Again, I'll put it under Pomelo. A Pomelo juiciness. Now a lot of Japanese green teas have this lemon, limoncello quality to it. This is much more zesty, a bit more punchy, a bit more, you know, fragranced, but with a little bit more bite to it. Pomelo, grapefruit. Oh, I love it. And that Pocari Sweat isotonic drink. All right, smell this empty cup. Ooh, buzzy, rushy. Not as theanined as the more shaded teas, and the more brothy teas, right? So you're going to, in terms of that balance between theanine and caffeine, you're getting a little bit more caffeine in this one. It's definitely going to hit a bit more, give a bit more energy. Icing sugar, and again, cherry. Cherry juice. Cherry juice, icing sugar, dried cherries, cherry shortcake, sponge cake, porridge, but then that grapefruit twang, and that mineral buzz, and just a tea which excites and delights. I hope that you enjoy Cherry Yamakai. Again, let's drive trends ourselves here, right? More people buy these kinds of teas the more we can have breadth and diversity in the tea industry, and I think that that is something that we all want to see for the future of tea culture. That's it teaheads. Check out our other videos, taste our teas wherever you are in the world, by browsing Mei Leaf dot com, and come visit us if you're ever in London. I'm Matt. I'm Don from Mei Leaf. Thank you for being a part of the revelation of true tea. Stay away from those tea bags, keep drinking the funk, and spread the word, because nobody deserves bad tea. Bye.