Fujieda (Japan) (AFP)
Ice creams, pastries, matcha chocolate: this luminous green tea powder regales pupils and taste buds in Japan and abroad, a new vein for Japanese merchants seeking to stop the decline of tea consumption by all means.
In a tea shop in Shizuoka, the country's leading producing province, customers are crowding around the seven-piece matcha ice-cream tray, whose color changes color according to the bitterness of the scent, which they come to taste. tea.
"The number of regular tea drinkers is decreasing," says Shigehiko Suzuki, head of the Marushichi Seicha company which operates several stores in the archipelago.
Based on this observation, this 55-year-old entrepreneur started a tea business "matcha" 20 years ago, which quickly hit the mark, before launching nine years ago in ice cream at matcha, offering seven levels. different from bitterness.
"The demand for matcha is booming, especially in Asia and the United States, for ice cream, desserts and coffee," he says.
Last year, Japan exported more than 5,000 tons of green tea (all types), ten times more than two decades ago. Europe is also one of the destinations.
Over the years, competition around matcha has intensified around the world. "Japan is no longer the only one" to produce, and "the matcha can not save all the producers" of Japanese tea, admits Mr. Suzuki.
- Matcha and Sencha -
A few miles away, a couple of peasants wearing a white kerchief pick up the tea leaves in a field.
In the nearby factory, floats the smell of grilled thin leaves flying under the breath of hot air. Dried in an oven, they are then sorted and crushed into a fine powder, the famous matcha.
"We decided to convert to matcha because it pays more," said Yoshio Shoji, 67, a farmer for 50 years.
Matcha is sold at twice the price of sencha, the most popular green leaf tea in Japan.
Historically, Japan discovered tea in the early 9th century. From China, he was at the time used for his medical virtues. It was not until the 16th century that matcha was developed in Kyoto, inseparable from the tea ceremony developed by the master Sen no Rikyu.
The sencha, it will be invented only two centuries later. It now accounts for more than half of the 80,000 tons of tea produced in Japan per year, while matcha tea, although growing, barely exceeds 3%.
- "The peasants cry" -
"It is everywhere 'matcha, matcha'! The Japanese sell kimonos abroad and tea ceremony", during which the matcha is emulsified in hot water using a small bamboo whip, "It's the cultural side, but during that time the farmers are crying," says Stéphane Danton, a French tea merchant, who has been living in Japan for a long time.
In fact, the number of tea farms was almost divided by three between 2000 and 2015.
But for Danton, Japanese teas have a future: "The potential of Japanese tea is ahead of us, not behind," he says. And those who rely on matcha "have planted marketing line," according to him.
To seduce Western palates or Asian not accustomed to the bitterness of some Japanese teas, he offers in his store Ochakara, in the heart of Tokyo, a multitude of fragrances which he smells the smell, plum cola or the mango, passing by the "yomogi" (sagebrush), which evokes Provence after the rain.
These variations are not to the taste of the Japanese, more orthodox, but attract tourists, bartenders and pastry chefs, assures this former sommelier, who likes to serve tea in a glass on foot, to taste fresh.
- "Rediscover" -
Dusting the image of tea, neglected by younger generations, it is also the goal of these tea shops that are trying in Tokyo on the fashion of "coffee shops", hoping to erase the image "outmoded" tea, to make it "cooler," says Mikito Tanimoto, creative director who opened one of these trendy establishments two years ago.
Remained, the coffee tables and tatami mats: "It is important to imagine new ways of presenting tea to allow people to rediscover its value," says Yuka Ihara.
She officiated in a whiskey bar before joining this lair of tea, less formal than the traditional ceremony but more refined than the plastic bottles sold in mini-markets and distributors.
© 2019 AFP