From Kawane to San Diego: Yoshi's Tea Journey
Suruga Artisan Visit - Part III
Sometimes, when you meet someone, it's all in the slightest details about a person that you can learn more by observing. When I first met Yoshi, he pulled up in a navy blue KEI truck, and I immediately felt we would have a lot in common.
I really appreciated his soft approach to tea, he wasn’t trying to prove anything, just expressing his belief in making sustainable tea, creating an atmosphere others and himself would enjoy. His story resonated with me: when he was younger, he wasn’t interested in taking over the family’s tea farm, which has been in his family for 13 generations. He moved to Tokyo to study and eventually worked in marketing and apparel design, but like many people from Shizuoka, he eventually returned home away from the bustling Tokyo life.
I asked Yoshi what he loved most about growing up, and he said it was playing in the tea fields and drinking tea outside while enjoying the view.
We meet a lot of tea farmers, and I drink a lot of tea, but I truly enjoyed Yoshi’s philosophy. I could taste the purity and crispness of his tea. The way he presents it is also special—interactive and design-forward, with visuals that make the experience easy to connect with and understand. The detail of delighting folks in small touches of his tea work shows in his creative background.
I was ecstatic that Yoshi was able to visit San Diego this year, and I wanted to make sure everything was set for his event. He was worried about the water, and I realized that, in San Diego (and the U.S. in general), we don’t exactly distinguish between soft and hard water the way they do in Japan. We typically use terms like spring, distilled, filtered, or unfiltered. To play it safe, we went to a Japanese market to buy Japanese water. The water he uses for his tea is the natural mountain water next to his farm. When he exports his tea, the final taste won’t be exactly the same. But I think this was a fun challenge for him to think about.
In contrast to Chef Chikako’s event, where we needed all the help we could get to prepare the dishes and food, tea can require a different approach. Sometimes, you just need a quiet moment to prepare yourself. On Sunday morning, we gave Yoshi some space to set up in Bow Hall, and I was looking forward to assisting him with the actual event tea preparations. Ai Kanazawa helped interpret, and although Yoshi was nervous, he pushed himself to do three back-to-back events—all in English! Everyone had a memorable experience. Even delighting us with making hojicha live and introducing Japanese herbs he forged in a nearby forest next to his tea farm.
One of my favorite parts about Yoshi’s visit was that we got to hang out more. When we meet, usually it’s for the work in our tea tour, so it was great to have pockets of moments (even though we were busy in his short time here). We laughed over how we’re not able to drink alcohol and coffee, and sometimes it’s difficult to decline when our good friends in coffee offer it to us when we meet them.
I asked Yoshi what his favorite part of his short stay in San Diego was, he said it was being a true “San Diegan”, grabbing fruit (he tried all the California fruit he could) at the farmers market with a drink in hand. Besides tea, his family also grows blueberries (it’s his favorite fruit).
Thank you Yoshi for sharing your tea with us. We welcome you back anytime and look forward to having your teas available at PARU soon!
Here are some photos of our event by Charlene Siliezar of Studio Luniste. Fun fact: Charlene accompanied us during our first trip to meet Yoshi, almost exactly one year ago. It was great to have a reunion with each other again to come full circle. Enjoy!
Cheers,
Amy
ahh soo cool. gonna have to make my way to shizuoka soon !!