chatsumi: tea picking

every year, high schools go on a field trip together. for miyako high school, they go to spaceworld, a theme park with rollercoasters and water rides, at kanda & yukuhashi high school, they go to hiko-san, hiking in the mountains, and our school? picking tea leaves (free labor)! =) i had fun though...

the theme for the day is "isshin san yo" which means 1 stalk, 3 leaves, which is how you're supposed to pick the tea. below is an example. so you just pick off the tops of the plants and every student has a plastic bag to collect 500grams. it's actually quite a lot and takes a while to pick. some students like to try and cheat and pick any kine leaves to make 500 grams, but when you take your bag up to the weighing area, they dump your leaves in a basket and check to make sure you only have isshin san yo in there.



here's me and one of the tea leaf tops i picked. still felt kinda sick yesterday but being outside was nice for a change. and picking tea is kind of mesmerizing. and you don't have to use your brain so i liked it a lot.



our school is rare to have our own tea field. most people i've talked to don't think our tea is very good, but we're proud of it anyway i think. they serve our tea in the staffroom.. i think it tastes alright... but i was assuming it wasn't great because someone told me they save the junk part for the teacher's staffroom. thanks!