Friday, June 12, 2020 - Falling Price of Japanese Tea

Video Subtitles:

hi everybody happy Friday it's June 12th
can you believe it
today I'm gonna come on shortly just to
talk about some updates from tea
industry in Japan as well as in China
ciao Joe China to be specific so yeah
I'm just gonna get right into it I'm
just going to be on your shortly I a
couple hours late I had a tasting with a
new coffee shop in town and that kind of
went a little long but that's okay
it's Friday it's the weekend we can do
what we like I really like these
rainbows here it's very nice
so yeah I'm gonna jump right in and talk
about Japan so our friend Ricardo from
my Japanese green tea it's a blog tea
education blog about Japanese tea
culture he posted a very interesting
graphic yesterday that totally you know
reiterates all the things that that
we've been saying for years and years
and years about the Japanese tea
industry that always shocks people that
it's a very dire situation for the
Japanese tea farmers so the the first
flush of Japan is completely cleared and
so you know we see the production
numbers and what happened and as you
remember throughout this entire pandemic
Japan had a pretty open policy about you
know social distancing and and the
country staying open so I would say of
all the countries they had the most open
situation so you would expect less
change to the industry probably the
biggest thing that happened for Japan
was in regards to their posts so the
Japan post system pretty much put on
hold for a few months now it's been
opened and now things are moving pretty
freely around in logistics but they had
put a whole
old for a couple of months on any of the
more economic shipping solution so the
only shipping solution that would have
you know moved at a decent rate was the
meets Express services so very costly
shipping during the time which could
have put some influence on the industry
but so numbers are out now and we see
that there's been a this is just for
Shizuoka Prefecture their production
numbers which it's a good representation
of the entire industry Shizuka is the
largest production precinct
you know area and in Japan so so it's
down 15 to 20 percent and next like
quantity produced there's several
reasons to that there has you know been
some difficult weather that had some
influence on that but mostly it has to
do with you know the pandemic either you
know not able to go to work or
potentially you know forecasts about the
markets there's probably several
different reasons why that had happened
so I'm just going to show a graphic here
on the computer you know this is all in
Japanese language don't don't worry
about that so the numbers on the left is
production numbers so that's production
quantities and then the numbers on the
right are the price so this is price per
kilo of teeth and this market price is
like a commodity a commodity price in
Japan they do have somewhat of a
commodity system for the you know for
the for the the tea industry actually
for the entire agriculture industries in
Japan is very unique and how agriculture
products are marketed and distributed so
legally and this has been since World
War two a farmer in Japan cannot
directly market their products into the
legally of course a lot of that has
changed now and and and and you do of
course the farmer is selling directly
into the market but for the longest time
it was illegal for a farmer to sell
their product directly into the market
and they had to sell their product to an
organization called Japan agriculture
Japan IRA culture is a government
bureaucracy and you know 60 years ago
when this organization was first formed
they had the very important role of
aggregating all the supply chain and all
the marketing and it was a necessary
thing we didn't have the internet we
didn't have as much prevalent widespread
education about information exchange and
so those centralized systems as with our
entire global industry of everything it
was necessary to have that centralized
aggregation of marketing and business
and of cash flow and all of those things
that make up industry and how industry
happens so this is like a 60 year old
Braham exactly how it was run 60 years
ago so you know definitely an outdated
system at this point
and in addition to outdated system as is
the case with a lot of outdated systems
a corrupt one and and you know
potentially not intentionally corrupt
but I think that there are several
parties that have become very
comfortable and the privileges that a
centralized organization like this
provides and these are the same
privileges that are provided to the
Indian tea traders and the Kenyan tea
traders that work with these centralized
auction houses that may or may not be
government control and government
regulated but in these centralized
auction houses are centralized marketing
mechanisms similar to Japan agriculture
there's a lot of power that lies within
that centralization and
when the buyers involved in that
discover that they can create a lot of
damage to the industry and and and a lot
of privilege for themselves and I have I
have one a story of hearing this
privilege directly from somebody that
unintentionally knew about his privilege
and about all these things so I'll share
that story now
so this was in 20 2014 we were in
Fukuoka area Japan so that's like
southern southern part of the main
island and we were in the the town of
llame which is like a very famous you
know ancient I really love these
rainbows on Instagram so cool a really
famous kind of old town in in Fukuoka
that has preserved a lot of its heritage
and we came across a tea house an
incredible tea house like so quaint so
covered in dust and you could just you
could see its age and feel its age and
its energy inside this tea house but
there's a young man running it you know
he had acquired it from his father and
was carrying on the tradition and a very
nice person we had a great time getting
to know each other sharing our love of
tea with each other and he was
thoroughly fascinated with with my work
and what I was doing and you know at
that time I had just I was at the tail
end of the amazing tea race so I had
just been spending two months all
throughout Asia hi Paul
I'm guessing it's you Paul good to see
you Justine and so he was just asking me
lots of questions and I just finished
charlie all throughout the tea lands of
Asia and he asked me like are you doing
business I said yeah yeah well I'm
trying to create a new way of business
I'm you know I'm not buying a whole
bunch of tea while I'm here I'm just
trying to create
some business and a new way of business
of more transparency and more connection
to the farmer and more empowerment to
the farmer and he totally understood all
those things he knew about the plight of
the farmer and he knew the struggles of
a farmer to keep producing their tea
because you know the market price is so
difficult for them and I said yeah I'm
building this new system and so you know
tea buyers all over the world can
connect directly with the farmer and buy
the tea from them and everybody can be
happy with the financial transaction and
he says oh I part of this club he called
it a club and it's great and I said okay
what was this club he was like that's
kind of like your business but we're
we're a network of the buyers and we get
to come all together and we get to buy
the tea together and when we do it like
that we get the price that we want
enough like head hanging low like yeah
you know that thing you're talking about
is exactly what I'm trying to fight
because the farmer needs a higher price
like I understand the value of you
getting the price that you want for the
tea you're buying but there's a lot of
work that needs to be done to empower
the farmers and I I guess you know by
the end of that conversation we had
agreed to disagree essentially which is
fine but it was like I tell that story
because that story is exactly that
privilege that I'm talking about that
buyers have and you know it's just tea
Kenya the same thing happens in Kenya
with the with the auction houses so when
you aggregate all of that buying power
together it gives too much power to the
buyers where they get to control the
price and so you know this happens
especially in India Kenya you know and
and and then it works across the board
because in an international commodity
system it's like everybody's playing on
the same fields together so no matter
where you're growing and producing your
you you almost have to play in the same
pricing fields and these aggregations of
power in the buying space
has really caused a lot of damage to the
market price of tea so I'll show this
graphic again of the amount of
production compared to the price of tea
and this graph is going from 2012 until
2020 here so this is this year's numbers
you see on both sides there there's
actually a pretty significant drop not
only in the amount of production that's
understandable you know more farms are
going wild more families are abandoning
their their their their tea farming
operations so that makes sense like for
for production so the output numbers is
this green is these green bars here and
so you know it's you know had some
decrease and some increase and and
whatnot and then the pink here is the
price and you definitely see a
consistent decrease in price and this is
interesting for me because the the dates
here start in 2012 which is actually the
last time I looked at these numbers when
I first started Tila when I first
started researching all of these systems
I hadn't looked up these numbers and and
frankly they made me sick so I didn't
want to continue looking at them but
thank you to Ricardo from my Japanese
green tea for bringing this graphic and
there's a whole link here to with with
with with an article but this graphic is
enough to see everything the price has
gone down you know in 2012 when I was
researching this I had seen the price
had actually stayed pretty steady for
the past 30 years 30 years the price of
tea in the market in Japan has not
increased in those 30 years and now we
see over the past eight years it's
actually decreasing and so now it's at
you know it's it started in 2012 at
about 2000 yen and now it's at 1500 yen
so I mean that's pretty drastic that's
like why my math is like it's like a
quarter really no yeah that's like a 20
percent decrease in price and we all
know how inflation works the cost of
production has done nothing but go up
there's nothing we can do to fight that
cost of resources cost of water cost of
fertilizers cost of labour it's so crazy
Paul it's and this is Japan you know
when people always think of Japan as
like it's a developed it's it's it's a
technology and a financial powerhouse
which is totally true in the cities but
tea production is happening in the
countryside and it's it's oftentimes
forgotten and you know additionally in
the article it's written that a lot of
farmers are contemplating quitting and
it makes sense you know the cost of
living is high yeah everything is is
high so it's it's a struggle and it's
sad for us tea lovers to have to think
about that and how do we how do we
protect that how do we control that
there's really nothing in our power to
do that because these numbers here that
we're talking about are like completely
out of our hands it's like it's it's
it's being controlled and it is
benefiting a system that we are
connected to we are consumers of it but
we have no power in it these are like
the Coca Cola's and you know the
kraftfoods of the world these are
extremely powerful networked
organizations that that are enjoying
this privilege that I was talking about
earlier so not so much great news I have
to share today and you know this graphic
just totally reiterates exactly what you
know I've been saying for years about
Japanese tea you know there is some good
news like if you're buying your tea
directly from a farmer and and that
doesn't happen too often in Japan
because in Japan there is a huge
language barrier even though most
Japanese people study you know English
through most of their education system
there's not a whole lot of confidence
not just in like language fluency but
just call
evidence and and and connectivity you
know they have the technology to connect
but you know there's not a whole lot of
interaction happening from Japanese tea
farmers and and the the international
tea drinking community you know of
course the teas that we distribute for
for Japanese tea farmers those are
beneficial and you can be assured that
those economic systems are benefitting
for the good but what's causing this
issue with the pricing issues is is is
not the ceremonial grade matcha it's
it's not high quality cookie chow it is
like very standard Yahoo Keith essentia
that is exclusively gonna go into ready
to drink and so this is you know big
cultural shift of Japanese tea culture
over the past thirty years thirty forty
years since that price has stagnated
since those you know powerful buyers
which include companies like Coca Cola
maybe not coca-cola but you know Ito N
or Sapporo or ki Dean or like these big
beverage companies they they are the
ones that have popularized the ready to
drink tea and so that's actually become
the tea culture in Japan job you know a
young Japanese person you know wouldn't
be practicing you know some type of tea
brewing and aunty enjoyment it's
practice their idea of tea is convenient
it's cold is refreshing it's in a
vending machine outside of every train
station that you go out of that you can
you know put your money in and uni and
you can enjoy it and these ready to
drink teas are always going to be
competing against the commodity ready to
drink soft drink industry which includes
coca-cola and you know the consumers
perception of those types of products is
I hate to use the word cheap because
it's such a bad way to describe it but
it's just it's a low value it's easy
it's convenient its commodity it's you
know low price low value and so these
our sourcing for that market competition
are also up against you know a big
yeah miles I'd love to hear about last
time you were you were in Japan and and
what you were exposed to I mean I'm sure
if you've been to Japan you know what
I'm talking about with this tea culture
and so it's it's that industry that is
really affecting this pricing issue
that's happening right now and it's
really sad because what it would it
results in and what I have seen so many
times before when I lived in and rural
Japan and saw the realities of tea
production of autonomous small grower
tea production it is seventy five year
old grandma and grandpa hunched over in
the field just doing it out of the love
of their heritage and dying doing it and
you know encouraging their their
children and their grandchildren to go
to the cities you know not get stuck
into this system while the grandparents
are you know eating into their pensions
that those are meant to be years of
enjoyments and and years of relaxation
instead their years of stress and then
having to deal with this bullshit you
know you produce some product and it
costs a certain amount for you to
produce it you take it to market and
they're like oh you deserve 25% less
money for your tea this year just
because of because man I couldn't I
couldn't imagine that kind of life so
yeah that is the sad news of today and
thank you to Ricardo for bringing this
graphic to our attention and I'm gonna
give him one more shot out it's Ricardo
from my Japanese green tea calm very
knowledgeable on Japanese tea culture
Japanese tea and he runs a podcast he's
a very friendly entertaining guy so if
you're not following them already please
go find him he is on all the channels
you will be able to find out my Japanese
green tea
so yeah you said last time to Japan the
supplier told you that the youth is
losing interest and tea and tea culture
is dying of course yeah definitely and
but there's there's some opportunity for
that revitalization of culture and you
know who's gonna do who's gonna do it
who's gonna leave that revolution and
that the renovation is is like hipsters
in America that are popularizing
Japanese tea culture you know using the
cue suit brew their tea drinking real
ceremonial great matcha you know not
just enjoying matcha as a novelty like
bakery item and so as those trends
continue to become more popular here it
will cycle back you know to Japan and
and that's how Japan's culture has been
operating since World War two is this
like fetishes I'm terrible this word but
it's such a good word fetishes
fetishization of American culture and so
whatever cool is cool here you know
cycles back being cold there we're just
kind of funny because it works on the
opposite way here you know we kind of
fetishize Japanese cultures so it's
interesting how that all works out
but yeah moving on that's that's what's
going on Japan it's a bleak thing drink
good matcha drink expensive matcha or
what'd you call it expensive matcha high
value matcha because that does support
good agriculture it does support farmers
and does support the longevity of
Japanese tea culture because yes it is
under great risk of loss and I know we
always talk about Chinese tea culture
being very long-established which is
totally true but
so yeah Japanese culture
we gotta love it oh yeah that's not a
saint you know Chinese tea culture is
you know long-established thousands of
years but Japanese tea culture is
actually the longest-running you know so
there's some significance to that that's
eleven hundred years of heritage you
know much longer than Chinese tea
culture Chinese tea culture has had
several breaks you know one most
recently within the past hundred years
that has completely just kind of caused
a rift in the history of that heritage
but in Japan it has been ongoing you
know it's definitely gone through waves
a popularization and decline and incline
and decline the one good thing if you
are a ceramics enthusiasts now is a good
time to to collect extremely high value
you know Japanese shadow ceramics
because you know with the the
popularization of it the demand being
down causes the the prices to go down as
well so affordable time to be collecting
you know collectible historic wares
Japanese tea wares specifically like try
to or like matcha bowls and whatnot so
then the other update I wanted to give
is kind of better news coming from chow
Hill in China in Guangdong
very close to Hong Kong and also the
home of incredible TR artisan ship
incredible T as well along T so that's
where Phoenix mountain and their
beautiful dancing lungs are you know the
culture and the the business of them are
even though dunk the dongseong t like
especially like the really higher
echelon quality of dongseong T is coming
from you know the top of wudong and we
don't village at the top of the mountain
and child Joe city is a little bit of a
distance away but that entire area the
phoenix mountain area not just Budong is
a just amazing place for tea production
and not to say that all the tea coming
from that place is good or ethical there
you know when I visited there I was very
sad to see a lot of the the monoculture
you know kind of destruction of the
biodiversity and the mountainous area
there and then also the the use of
chemicals and all of those things but
yeah so the update from there is kind of
a feel-good update but I thought it was
kind of interesting that they are making
the provincial modern agricultural
industrial park for dongseong tea and
that's gonna be in charge o city there
has been an influx of tourism there and
it's actually quite a small town it's a
very like traditional quiet just
comfortable place with incredible foods
like I would say child o food is
probably my favorite of China very sweet
very gluttonous and very it's very
casual the street food there is very
comfortable and it stays open till like
2:00 or 4:00 in the morning like it's a
very like casual comfortable culture
that is you know very attractive for
just like hanging out and drinking tea
and talking story so any kind of culture
like that or place that encourages that
type of behavior is a good place for me
so in addition to this agricultural
industrial park there's going to be a
tea trading markets a tea cultural space
that will have other functions such as
intangible cultural heritage inheritance
skills training for go pootie so cha Jo
is actually the birthplace of gongfu cha
of the of its yeah we believe is the
first like specified process of of
gongfu cha
now the the term and the ideology of
gongfu cha that many of us know in
practice now is something that's kind of
adopted and and evolved in in taipei
really gung cuckoo chose an ideology
kungfu cha as a lifestyle and and just a
way to enjoy tea is something oh hi Joe
so we got Joe Joe had a question I'm
sorry I missed your question earlier you
had asked about those numbers that I
shared is this measured based on the
industry as a whole the specialty tea
farms quantity based farms so those
numbers were just from Shizuka
Prefecture and that is I don't know if
it's specialty or commodity or if it's
everything I think most likely its its
the commodity based farms which is it
all of them like she's oka is almost all
commodity based farms there's very few
you know small-scale artisanal farms and
even the small scale farms that are
selling to Jay a they're they're
autonomous small farms that like owned
their own farms and and and produce
their own tea but as soon as they take
that t2j a which legally and they're
supposed to take 100% of their t2j to
sell it it become
the commodity so you know and like in
India when we think of commodity team
you think of like these large expansive
plantations which actually those do
exist in cheese oka there are very large
expansive fields
there's even larger ones in Kawashima so
that's why I'm very skeptical of comp
FEMA tea when I hear about it or someone
says oh this is great accomplishing my
tea it's usually coming from a very
large scale commodity based production
system but Jenay itself will take an
artisanal product like a single origin
artisanal beautiful product and turn it
into a commodity immediately so that's
probably a you know and there are so
many powerful people and even non
powerful people like that vendor and
llame I told that story you know that
small tea shop owner there are so many
people that are benefiting from the
privilege of what j-a does for them as
far as pricing and efficiency and
logistics and all of that that it's
gonna be really hard to remove that
system and to you know kind of demonize
that system and make change so you know
my idea is just pave our own path and so
that's what we're doing and you know
thanks thanks for being a part of that
that initiative to create our own path
and on our own future for this so I hope
that that answers your question Joe and
good to see you too it has been a while
I'm missing missing human will to catch
up sometime
so yeah you know I was talking about
gongfu cha taipei and how that term has
kind of evolved from the Chou joke
gongfu cha is even though it's not a
ceremony there is a process there is
like a prescribed process see your point
either way just being home for this long
it's definitely gonna die yeah it's
definitely gonna die and he's so so our
friend COO Nissan and Shizuka you know
the matcha that we work with and part of
the virtual tea festival if you remember
the last presentation was from Japan
that village where they are creating
that whole village for for organic
matcha production that story is the new
path and if you find stories like that
to support you know we can you know keep
the culture of Japanese tea alive now as
far as like the rest of the industry
like this commodity industry that's not
very valued and having a 25% reduction
in price in the past eight years what
the fuck anyway sorry I'm a little
impassioned by that um yeah that that's
gonna die I mean at least in the way it
is now it has to die either the farmers
are gonna literally die which they're
doing like the you know they're old and
they're just making tea until they die
and their kids and their grandkids are
like uh uh we're not into it we're gonna
like stay in the city use we're gonna
stay with our tech jobs like we're more
comfortable this way and that's totally
understandable and totally dignified and
you know they're they're right to that
now the industry the the processed
industry so they're ready to drink
industry that's not going anywhere we're
always going to have like a demand for
convenience and for ready to drink you
know refreshing you know tea beverages
and so that industry will continue to go
that industry will continue to demand
it's low prices and we'll continue to
find you know corrupt systems if they
can control and leverage their power to
control the pricing they'll just go to
different places and they'll support
different production origins and we're
already seeing that Japan so Ito and
that is like the first company that
popular is ready to drink unsweetened
green tea in Japan there's a ton of
other companies now but you towing is
the first and they're the largest and
they're International they're everywhere
and I used to work for them so I can
speak on this because I have personal
information or experience
about information I just say experience
because I don't even know if the
information that I received from that
experiences you know whatever but I just
have my own experience of you know
seeing that they created their whole
industry in Australia you know we've all
heard of Australian grown tea it's a
thing it was made by Yuto in you Tolan
was the main power that went to
Australia brought the cult of Arts from
Japan and started investing and
developing an industry there now there
is like a specialty industry in
Australia you are seeing that more and
more you know very good quality teas
coming from Australia but there's also
like a commodity industry that was built
for the ready-to-drink industry you know
production industry so you know each
one's already done it
they did it they did that project like
20 years ago now it's an old project
when they started making the industry in
Australia and it was all kind of under
the radar because they weren't trying to
sell Australian tea they were trying to
sell oil czy they were trying to sell
their unsweetened tea in the bottle so
you know and who knows where else they
they've gone now I I know when I was
leaving Ito and actually not what I'm
leaving this was maybe three years ago I
ran into my old boss and he told me hi
Gabi I'm actually I had been drinking a
lot of tea today I did a tasting with
the coffee shop so I have a lot of tea I
have nothing to my guy one right now I
am you know just on a impassioned
tangent right now how the Japanese tea
industry but I'll get I'll get brewing
some tea again I don't know if I need it
my body's like all rushed right now I
just drank a bunch with a coffee shop
tasting earlier so yeah when I met with
my old boss a couple of years ago he
told me he was actually some exploring a
tea industry in the States a big in a
big development project
not just you know a specialty
small-scale you know a couple acre
specialty lot like you know that so
they're already planning and they're
already building up those supply chains
to support their business without
necessarily you know trying to fix this
issue in Japan itself so yeah thank you
with your patience with my tangent on
that I hope the information has been
useful for you so back to the good news
a gum fruity and ciao Joe China is
awesome and it's not a ceremony it is
you know a way of life
casual hospitality happiness community
and good team but you know a lot of the
gongfu cha that we practice and know
about and talk about is kind of that
evolved term that popularized the
lifestyle of like hanging out at a tea
house and the this was all you know kind
of a campaign by marketers in taipei
that wanted to popularize the activity
of hanging out at a tea house and so
thank goodness for that because go
muchas awesome it is so awesome and it
is such a great way to bring the
community together the tea community
together and in giving an identity to
the tea community about what what is it
the heck that we're doing here you know
we're not just trying to be tea snobs
and trying to learn all about tea and
drink all the tea we're practicing gunk
flu we're trying to better ourselves
we're trying to get new skills and
ultimately we're trying to be incredible
host for our guests so it's a good thing
and Tojo is very good place to
experience that lifestyle and it is
deeply rooted in their culture and their
food like I said you can just be walking
the street very safe place you can just
be walking in the street at two o'clock
in the morning
you'll see street vendors making bowls
of noodle soup and like just some
incredible amazing food and then you go
in the next the next building over and
there's like you know three guys sitting
outside the door drinking tea together
and if you want you could you know go
introduce yourself and and and and and
and try to enter their space and share
some experience with them and more than
likely they're gonna welcome you you
know cuz that's going foo that's tea so
please visit Jojo if you have the chance
if you ever go to China I don't I don't
encourage you to try to go to tell Jo to
start a dongseong tea business because
it is a very interesting business you
know especially when it comes to the
very high quality high quality tea the
really expensive real dongseong so
dongseong means single bush and so
sometimes people as they get into this
business or they start studying
dongseong tea they assume that any tea
that says done song on and it's coming
you know it's harvested from one bush
and that's usually not the truth it is
the truth in some cases and you better
believe that those teas are very
expensive so if the tea is not costing
you as a consumer if the tea is not
costing you anything less than two
dollars a gram it is most definitely not
dongseong it is not the authentic thing
and nothing wrong with with other what I
caught like to call Phoenix Mountain who
longs they can be good but you know the
real dong Kong is coming specifically
from the Budong village area which when
you're there you really get to see how
small that growth space is I don't know
I could probably research and find out
exactly how many acres of tea are grown
and processed into authentic dongseong
but just to give you a point of
reference whenever I went and with the
friends that I was with
they are you know multi-generational tea
farmers that you know own patches of
land in the Budong area as well those
patches of land lower down the mountain
where where the tea is you know less
value and and and not the authentic
dongseong but when they took me to dong
village and showed me their tea patches
they're called patches and probably the
most idea of patches I've seen because
even in Yunnan they'll call their tea
areas patches as well
hi good to see you but in without
village a patch it could be literally
just like a space an area on you know
like a terraced mountainside but it has
like four bushes on it and they're like
this is our patch and that's all they
need you know the tea is so high valued
and so awesome that you know four bushes
it's more than enough to make what they
need to make and so there's all these
other patches all around but the space
itself is not that large and the space
you know the trees is actually very wide
so you know but as you go lower down the
mountain closer to chouchou
you'll start to see more of this more
compact growth the bushes are smaller
and you know you can tell that the value
of the the tea that comes from that is
much lower in this article its sense
that there are it said how many acres
are actually in the child Jill dongseong
tea growing area seventy thousand mu
which is a four thousand six hundred
sixty six point seven that point seven
is important than that number hectares
which is maybe maybe like close to
10,000 and let me get the exact number
for us because I
they encouraged on that that's eleven
thousand eleven thousand five hundred
acres that's a lot I would say my guess
of like the real dongseong like that
space is probably closer to like twenty
years that's a high estimates and so of
this 11,500 acre is only only like 20 of
those are actually like the authentic
dongseong the rest are you know more in
the the line of like commodity
production so there is a lot of
commodity Phoenix not to do Long's being
produced and you know dog song T like
the real one that was the second T in my
life that when I drank it it like
changed my whole perspective and changed
my whole life around t of like whoa t
actually can be it can be unique the
first one I did that for me was Gil Coto
shaded green tea from Yami from from
yummy where the the last story I told
and then yeah when I went to tell Jo the
first cup of dumpling that was given to
me of course every other cup that I had
was also life-changing but that first
one was like whoa okay now I get it now
I get why already talks about these
Phoenix Mountain who longs being so good
because before that point I had been
served several different Phoenix
Mountain who lungs and none of them ever
impressed me at every tea shop even the
fanciest tea shops in San Francisco that
I went to you know the owners I meet
with them and they'd be so proud
oh we have our new Phoenix not too long
you gotta try it yeah this is it's not
doing it for me and the reason why is
because those those Phoenix not to new
lungs are coming from like the lower
points on the mountain where you know
the the the DNA of the trees are not as
pure you know they say first generation
second generation is what you consider
Troodon song you know first generation
is like
the bomb like I don't even think I've
ever even gotten to tasted it people
have said they've poured it for me and
then I have other friends with me elbow
and say no this is not the real thing
they would never serve you the real
thing you know the first generation
being like from the the T King from the
the original mother Bush to the big tree
and they harvest that and they do they
they harvest and make batches of tea but
it's like all already exclusively
reserved for either you know political
leaders or you know like tribute it's
not it's not something that you'll go
into a tea shop in Beijing and they're
gonna say oh yeah I got this I got this
uh this dog song tea from the tea King
for you know a dollar a gram that's not
so anyway dongseong tea is amazing but
there's a lot of not real dumb song and
maybe it could be still good I
definitely have had Phoenix mountain
oolong that was not good that had a bad
energy to it and I went to drink it
again and when the first time I went and
we drove up the mountain to dong as we
passed you know all the lower elevation
tea plantations so a lot of workers with
a chemical backpacks a lot actually and
this was during the spring when I went
so it wasn't even like late summer you
know late summer is or mid to late
summers when you see a lot of chemical
use especially pesticides this was in
the spring time and they were already
using you know chemicals to assist in
things so yeah so I think that's you
know I'll just kill a quote from this it
says the tea industry and phone Kong
town so folk hometown is Phoenix that's
Phoenix honk-honk Shan has been a
Phoenix Mountain apart from pursuing
quality developments consolidating and
improving the primary industry shall
also make for into
development by connecting with the
secondary and tertiary industries and
that's coming from the secretary of the
party committee of hometown confidently
introducing that by creating a unique
town featured with tea and tourism the
secondary and tertiary industries will
also be improved Joe I did not change
the schedule I'm just a just a few hours
late I was like three hours late today I
had a tasting with the coffee shop that
went a little long and it's also Friday
so I can do whatever I want
it's Friday I can party but I did stop
doing weekends so Saturday and Sunday I
am relaxing and enjoying my time so not
doing the streams but I will start up
again on Monday at 2:00 p.m. with
dignified hospitality I don't know who
will be my guest
I want to bring cooks I want to talk
about that you know because I talked
with service staff I've talked with
supply chain vendors and you know
considered the consumer and you know
like what what what kind of dignity the
the foodie or the consumer deserves and
all of it but I think I'd like to talk
to chefs or or even cooks you know not
not just the chef's not just the because
I feel like in the restaurant industry
the chef is already pretty dignified
like the you know kind of the stigma
around being a chef this is already
pretty sexy but a decree hey sweet 16
what's up man good to see you I hope
you're doing well that is AB accrete
have a creep sixteen year old maybe
you're 17 now you're definitely 17 now
17 year old tea maker from Nicole
joining us on Instagram that's awesome
much love ever feat I hope everything is
beautiful and jasbeer as I said I bet it
is it always is that's heaven there
hi your teas popular I've sold out of it
everybody liked it I need more I talked
to you about getting more teeth
like small kind Nepalese tea celebrity
watching us on Instagram enjoying the
forest in your free time lucky you Joe I
guess the weather is nice there now yeah
I'm happy that you're working and I'm
very happy that you're enjoying the
forest sorry you can't join our virtual
tastings the tastes of people's tea I
hope you're getting those videos and
links so they were actually cool I
figured he probably did that just so
that you could see what we're up to and
how how it's being executed so I hope it
helps you and inspires you to do some
cool work like that cuz it's fun it is
fun so just to close out that article I
like I like how this addresses tea
gardens are turned into parks and
farmers become investors how cool is
I like that and this way ecology is well
protected farmers income increased and
rural characteristic industries
revitalized yeah I like that tea gardens
are turned into parks and farmers become
investors that's pretty dignified it's
pretty dignified the line I like the
abrogate take note take note you should
get a t-shirt that says that tea gardens
are turned into parks and farmers become
investors well that's it it's Friday and
late accursed a whole lot in this video
so I think it's time for me to go unless
there's any other questions or anybody
wants to drop in and chat with me you're
welcome to do so
I'd be happy to do that a Berkeley do
you want to come on you can turn your
camera on we could talk live that'd be
so cool it'd be so good to see you I'm
sure you gotta like you gotta do your
hair you're gonna make yourself look
presentable at Berkeley it's like
borderline model he's gonna hate it said
mmm anyway we should catch up Joe I'd
like to catch up with you see how
everything is going see how things are
going in in your town - with like the
REO openings and all exotics it's been a
bit of a mess here we've been open here
in Nevada for almost a month now yeah
almost a month I just want to go eat my
first meal out yesterday though and even
that felt like a big deal
a Peruvian ceviche yeah that was yeah
it's interesting so like sales of tea
and coffee have not immediately picked
up since everything is reopened so I'll
be interested to see how things have
have been working for you and all of
your hotel partners
regardless things are moving still you
know life is still going on and
happiness can still be found just we
might have to work a little harder to
see that perspective it's not right in
front of our faces these things but you
can still find it cool guys well I'm
gonna go I'm gonna I'm gonna start my
weekend I'm gonna have some fun as much
fun as I can have by myself good Quinn
but I hope you guys all have a wonderful
weekend thank you so much for for just
being and being here and that's all we
can continue to be together I'll
continue putting the effort out I'll do
it I have no problem doing it much luck
to you all thanks for listening tell my
my rants hi Heidi
thank you for saying hello so this is
evening I'm in the evening know maybe I
should start staggering some of my live
streams so that's
I do earlier and some of them I do now
because it seems that like I had a
different audience today which is cool
very cool I love having you guys here
and I'm always happy to share
you're great Heidi you're so great thank
you so much appreciate you very much all
much love Pirlo ha bless

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