Sharing the Story of Wakoucha

Dear Tea Lovers,

I wrapped up the first month of 2025 with another tea workshop at Nikkei Centre. This time, the topic was on Wakoucha - Japanese black tea. I had been seeking out Wakoucha specifically in the past two years and was thrilled to be able to introduce three of them at this event.

Since domestically produced black teas from Japan are not as well known, I decided to share the story of how Wakoucha came to be. The participants listened tentatively at how a country known for their love of green tea spent massive efforts to research, develop and produce black tea in the past 150 years.

While Wakoucha never really caught on globally despite all the government initiatives and efforts, it has quietly been revived by dedicated farmers and researchers who didn’t give up on exploring domestically grown and processed black teas. With the rising trend of Wakoucha in the past few years, I am seeing more innovations in this sub-sector of the tea space, such as experimenting with different cultivars and processing techniques.

I curated three Japanese black teas, each offering a very distinct flavour profile. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed them and many asked for second or third cups! After the workshop, many participants came up to me with positive feedback that just warmed my heart. One of my goals when I decided to become a tea educator was to share the many facets of teas but I wasn’t sure if this is something that people would want to learn about. Hearing the participants enjoy the facts that I shared and enabling them to try something new made me feel I am on the right track. One even said they loved how I shared tea through storytelling. It gave me a confidence boost!

Until our next tea adventure,
Jan