Mountain green tea grows in summer yet stays tender

I visited some mountain tea regions in Japan where air was hot in mid July. The heat is known to give great growth spur on tea, but also harden the tender leaf, thus summer harvest in Japan is generally considered to be less value.

I returned to Honokaa in early August noticing that all the misty rainy weather is keeping the air cool and demanding me to pull out long sleeve. Who would think you need to wear long sleeve shirt in summer in Hawaii? Pretty typical in our neighborhood.



Tea, on the other hand, enjoys this cool climate in summer and send out tender shoot even in summer. This makes me reconsider that summer harvest may actually be of good quality. Plenty of rain and occasional sunlight of Hawaiian mountain weather actually keeps it growing without too much hardening.

Constant breeze from the ocean is another thing that keeps our mountain slope nice and cool. Where mountain tea grows in Japan is typically up along a stream that keeps the area nice and cool, but I realized that it was actually not that cool, knowing that our summer is much more pleasant even with high humidity.

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