Mori-Machi

I have been taking photos like mad lately, because Spring in Shizuoka is incredibly beautiful, but I've been a little slow about processing and posting them. Here are a few from a recent hike in Mori-Machi, a small village in the hills a few hours from where I live. The area is all forested hills, broken up only by tea plantations.

Mori-Machi tea farm.

Shizuoka is the top tea producing area of Japan, and I can't even being to describe how much of it is grown around here. Tea bushes are everywhere, unbelievable quantities of them, all throughout the prefecture. There are huge tea plantations that take up entire hillsides, but also many more modestly sized, family owned tea fields, even rows of tea bushes nestled in between buildings along the highway. It is everywhere, really a sight to see. And in the spring, when the tea bushes put out their new emerald green leaves, the hillsides are even lovelier than usual.

Tea farmers.

Myself, Mike and Caroline with a group of drunken Japanese people we met at the shrine. I love Japanese people when they are drunk - all their reserve and shyness goes out the window, and they are so funny.

Picking tea by hand. Only the best quality tea gets picked this way, the rest is done by a machine.