Did you know that there is a beautiful green tea garden in Tokyo?
Actually I found this tea field about 20 min walk away from my house.
Funny thing is that It was behind the hill park which I have visited so many times!
I realized I was living a life in such a small area Lol.
This tea field belongs to Tokyo and it is looked after by a volunteer group and supervised by Higashikorume city.
This group takes care of it about once in 2 weeks and I have joined them since last month.
Young leaves had been picked so we trimmed its branches for the next picking.
I had never used such a big scissors and cut tea trees while I had a good knowledge about cultivation of tea as a Japanese tea instructor!
The president is from a rice shop in our city. He knew my grandparents because our family also used to run a shop there. He is so nice and cares about me very well.
Well my arms hurt now and I realized how hard farming is… That makes me thank tea producers…!
We made and enjoyed the first picked tea together after the farm work.
To be honest I couldn’t ignore some points to be corrected when they were making tea as a tea instructor but I still had a great time with the tea because I had it together with new friends haha
Also the president brought pickled cucumbers from his farm and others brought tomatos and snacks for us. These were really nice treats.
I was surprised that they knew well about plants! When I was walking around the tea tree with one volunteer and we found Houttuynia. He asked me “Do you know which parts of Houttunynia are flower leaves?” I pointed the white leaves of it and said ” apparently these ones.” “No” He said. ” They are actually calyxes. Petals are these tiny yellow ones in the middle of them”. I took a close look at it and there actually were knots of little ones among the big white ones. I was amazed by this new discovery. He also taught me about other plants and flowers in this park and made me pretty happy.
I cannot wait to learn more about nature by new local friends 
So let me declare here that I am not gonna be a boring tea instructor talking about tea only in a classroom but I will learn more about tea cultivation in a tea field beside textbooks and be a fascinating one!
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