I was born in Shizuoka prefecture in Japan. People call the region “the capital of green tea”. Indeed, it looks like it. If you go off a main road a bit, you see green tea fields everywhere ( 茶畑/chabatake). Everyone drinks green tea from the morning until the bedtime. We never asked questions about our caffeine intake. I actually never heard of anyone talking about it until I moved to London. They drink green tea like water. I remember taking green tea with a pickled plum(梅干し) in my thermal bottle to the primary school in winter time. I, along with other kids from the same village had to walk 40 minutes to the school every day so sipping the nice warm green tea here and there was such a treat.

My mum sends me freshly picked green tea from my hometown whenever it’s available. They taste different from what they taste like in Japan. The tap water is much harder in Europe than the tap water in Japan and it does change the taste and the colour of green tea. The same goes with English tea. I love earl grey tea but it does taste 10 times better in England than having it in Japan!