Your Uji matcha tea is not from Uji

I'm Kohei, from Japan, and I'm looking for a place to move to — somewhere in the Japanese countryside, away from city life. This is the third town on that search: Wazuka, in Kyoto. Wazuka is one of the biggest tea-growing towns in Japan — around 40% of all "Uji tea" is actually grown here. But most of it leaves the valley through wholesalers and gets sold under the Uji name, so hardly anyone knows the town itself. Japanese people have barely heard of it — yet somehow, tea lovers from all over the world find their way here. I spent a couple of days riding around the tea fields, talking to a farmer and a few people who moved here, trying to figure out how that happens. ABOUT THIS SERIES I'm visiting small towns across Japan, one at a time, to find a place I could call home — somewhere I can grow some of my own food, live closer to nature, and be part of a real community. I'm not here to review towns or rank them. I'm just trying to figure out where I belong, and sharing the search as it happens. New episodes as the journey continues. Subscribe to follow along. — PLACES IN THIS EPISODE Wazuka, Kyoto Prefecture Ishidera tea fields — the town's iconic hillside tea terraces Yasaka no Osugi — a giant cedar said to be over 1,000 years old Tomb of Prince Asaka ("Taiko-yama") — a burial mound ringed by tea fields Wazuka-cha Café — one of the few places in town to actually drink the local tea — #Japan #RuralJapan #JapaneseCountryside #Wazuka #Kyoto #Matcha #UjiTea #GreenTea #移住 #SlowLiving #CountrysideLife #JapanTravel #Inaka