Tea tasting: Goishicha

Shikoku is really home to many unique teas, especially dark or post-fermented teas. The mountains in Kochi prefecture are known to be tea-producing areas, with the Niyodogawa region being particularly well-known for Tosa tea production. However, it is only in one specific town where a rare dark tea is produced. Just over half an hour from Kochi …

Tea tasting: Kamikatsu Awabancha

Kamikatsu, a small town located in the mountains of Tokushima, has been making headlines around the world with its lofty ambition of becoming zero-waste. While I was in Shikoku, I could not possibly pass up the opportunity to visit the Zero Waste Centre to have a look at how the residents separate their trash into 34 categories. …

Tea place: Wadanoya

Wadanoya is a teahouse established in 1948, located in the temple district near Mt Bizan in Tokushima City. It serves Tokushima's signature confectionery item called taki no yakimochi, which is very flat and lightly grilled rice cake with red bean filling. Taki no yakimochi has a history of 400 years, and Wadanoya pledges to serve …

Shikoku tea haul

I have just came back from a two-week holiday in Shikoku, Japan's smallest main island. These are the teas I bought during my journey around the four prefectures of Tokushima, Kochi, Ehime and Kagawa. I failed to find the legendary Ishizuchi Kurocha from Ehime though. Well, I knew where I could find it, but I …