Organic growing tea

Now more farms try producing organic tea, and more finishing factories are attempting to process teas organically. The study of organic tea cultivation is becoming active in Kanagawa, Shiga, Miyazaki, Saga, and Shizuoka prefectures. Between 1991-1994, there was a test for comparing the quality of tea between organic growing tea and regular tea in Nakakawanecho in Kanbara, Shizuoka prefecture. As the result, there was not much difference for the first harvested tea (Ichibancha), however, for the Nibancha (the secondly harvested tea), the quality and the harvested amount of organically grown tea drop greatly. It is because of the anthrax tea tree gets during the fall period, or mochi disease or damage by insects. One countermeasure of prevention of anthrax is right after the secondly harvest, make sure to do the pruning and that can reduce the chance to get anthrax disease. More farms in the mountainside attempted the organic tea cultivation and some are successfully producing high quality organic green tea. It is because they have less chance to get damaged by insects due to their location of high altitude. However, the organic tea cultivation is very difficult and special attention needs to be paid. Selecting the strong breed or utilizing the natural enemy can be helpful. The government strictly controls indication of organic tea. All the criterions are set by JAS (Japan Agricultural Society) and they decide which tea can indicate organic JAS mark to prove that was made organically. This system of indication was started in April 2001.