Azuma Chaen Tea-Farm

The father of the Azuma family takes great care in choosing and home-blending his fertilizers and in relation to their approach to JAS organic farming he says: “Only obtaining the first flush helps to combat the bugs. After the first harvest we trim the bushes down in preparation of the next year. This means that we harvest before the bugs become active, and trim the bushes [刈り放し; karihokashi] so that when the bugs arrive, there is nothing left for them to survive on. This helps us to omit the necessity for the use of pesticides. On the contrary, if you harvest 2 to 3 times a year, then it is necessary to fight the bugs for they will affect your harvest after the first flush.”

Organic cultivation is less labor intensive as the work and cost of buying and spraying chemicals can be reduced. Though he mentions that to be absolutely organic with your farming, it is common to only employ absolutely organic fertilizers as well. His focus is mostly to make sure there can’t be any pesticide residue on his tea, but does employ a small variety of chemical fertilizers that help the bushes grow lush in flavor. He assesses what the bushes need by ‘talking’ to them. “They become as your children or your pet. Although you have no idea what your dog is barking about, you can feel, energetically, what it is that he/she is trying to tell you.” For Mr. Azuma it is the same with his tea bushes. Therefore he also cares about his manure, and blends it himself, based on what his bushes tell him. He raises his tea bushes by listening to their voice and cares about them greatly as they are the base for a variety of products, which he crafts without the use of pesticides out of consideration for the health and wellness of its drinker.

What tea needs the most to grow is nitrogen. Most fertilizers consist of the following three substances: Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), and Potassium (K). Rice for example, when fertilized with high amounts of Nitrogen only grow large leaf, but it doesn’t affect the growth of the grain itself. Whereas for tea it is the leaf that has to be fed, and therefore Nitrogen is a highly required substance. However, donning too much makes the leaf too fat, and prone to call bugs and diseases upon itself.

Azuma works with a combination of (N) 60-70%, (P) 10%, (K) 20%, and other smaller amounts of elements as Magensium (Mg), Mangan (Mn), etc. for the remaining 10%. He produces a mainly organic fertilizer, with minor elements of artificial products blended in. He says that if he would opt for fully organic only, the cost wouldn’t ad up for his purposes. Oil cake is a good foundation, and is widely available, but other substances such as fish lees from pacific herring for example used to be widely available, but are contemporarily scarce, and therefore expensive. Although the amounts of Nitrogen in fish lees are sufficient, the cost to obtain it is too high, and therefore he chooses to work with an oil cake base, and add artificial elements to it in small amounts. In February he would usually apply 300kg per 1000m2 of oil cake only. In March he then applies compost, and when the new buds start showing, he gives them Ammonium sulfate, which contains a good amount (21%) of Nitrogen for a final boost before growth, about 60-70kg per 1000m2.