Restoring tea farms at birthplace of Yamato tea
Kazuto Hazama and Kenichi Igawa, both of whom work at the ”Kenichi Shinzen Nouen”, are 2 people Nakata coincidentally ran into at ”Akame Natural Farming School” when he was visiting Mie. They had been attending the school to learn about natural farming. Igawa works to restore the abandoned tea farms in Nara by natural methods. This roused Hazama’s interest, and soon he left his job to join him.
Kenichi Nouen is located in the Yamato planes northeast of Nara. In 2005, the location was renamed and was transferred to become a part of Nara, but before this, the area was called Tsuge and was a popular district for Yamato tea. The altitude is 400 m – 500 m above sea level, causing heavy snow during the winter, and thus is referred to as the ”Hokkaido of Yamato”. The temperature difference between night and day is great, which is ideal for tea cultivation.
No Excess Labor
What the two are trying to do is to restore this farmland with the help of nature. They have been successful to an extent that now harvest can be expected in a couple of areas.
Their policy is leaving it to the hands of nature, not putting in excess labor. They will trim the shrubs if they grew too much and cover the tea, but otherwise, they cultivate the tea leaves without doing much else. Nara’s production of tea ranks 6th in the country. It is a city that had traditionally been very close to Buddhism and tea. In Nara, the two youths are successfully restoring tea farms with the aid of nature.
