Hi friends!

Last week, I talked about what sustainable/ethical tea means and this week, I’m very excited to bring you the first sustainabiliTEA profile! In each of these profiles, I will be introducing you to one farm (and possibly brands as well), and we’re going to talk about how they’re helping the planet and the people in their community. I’m also adding purchase links in case all these whet your appetite for tea.

Who is behind Hachimanjyu Tea Farm?

Hachimanjyu is an organic tea farm located in the UNESCO world heritage site of Yakushima. It was started in 1985 by three friends – Shiba Yayoshi (柴 八代志), Watanabe Mankichi (渡辺 万吉) and Kurushima Hisashi (久留島 寿志) – whose names are combined to create the name of the farm. Currently, the Watanabe family is running the day-to-day operations of the farm.

As a family farm that takes charge of the entire tea making process, Hachimanjyu tea has a tea factory and shop located on the farm itself! This means that the tea can be processed almost immediately after harvesting, and they have full control over the quality of the tea. I’ve visited their farm in 2019 and you can read more about my visit (and their delicious ice cream!) here.

If you’re interested in learning what the tea tastes like, I’ve reviewed both their genmaicha and black tea in this post. I really enjoy their genmaicha, which has strong sweet rice and seaweed notes and is perfect for cold weather or when you want something comforting.

Disgression: Visiting Yakushima

If you’re ever in the southern Kyushu region, I highly recommend visiting Yakushima. It’s a beautiful area and there’s a variety of hiking trails – ranging from those accessible to beginners like me and those specifically for more advanced hikers. It’s not a big island, and I think 2 days should be enough for you to get a taste of the island (and of course, you should visit Hachimanjyu Tea farm)! You can find my 2D1N itinerary here, and it includes links to the trails I tried and a hotel recommendation.

Tip: if you can, I recommend renting a car to drive around the island! It’s really very convenient.

Planet: Hachimanjyu Tea and the environment

As the first organic farm on the island, Hachimanjyu is a pioneer in green methods on Yakushima. Apart from organic farming methods – one of the things that struck me when I first contacted them was how they would rather remove pests by hand than to use pesticide – they are also using 100% hydroelectric green energy to power their farm!

This respect for the environment also comes up in their wide range of teas! For example, they’ve made compostable teabags, which are especially suitable for use by hikers who are exploring Yakushima and other areas. They’re also doing their best to cut down waste from tea by creating products like powdered tea, which can be made from the “lower grade” parts of the plant.

A portion of their teas is donated to the Yakushima Environmental Cultural Foundation (屋久島環境文化財団), which works through a variety of programs to preserve the natural beauty found in Yakushima, educated people about it, and operates the environmental and cultural village on Yakushima.

People: Hachimanjyu Tea and their Community

I’ve never really asked Hachimanjyu Tea about their relationship to the community, so this is where I learnt new things too! I found out that they are an active part of their community, working to promote organic products on Yakushima by promoting other organic Yakushima products in their shop and organising organic markets.

They also give back to the community by offering tea lessons to the primary school on the island. For these efforts, Hachimanjyu tea was awarded the best prize in the 2020 Sustainable Agriculture Future contest (未来につながる持続可能な農業推進コンクール) organised by the Kyushu Agriculture Administration Bureau.

Connect with Hachimanjyu Tea

If you’re interested in finding out more about Hachimanjyu Tea, you can find them on Instagram and they have a website in Japanese. They also asked me to share these two videos with you:

This short video is just over 1 minute and briefly introduces the farm. If you want to see how beautiful it looks, you have to watch this.

This second video is longer (almost 18 minutes) but it’s a worth watching to understand Yakushima as a whole. Hachimanjyu tea appears at around the 8:50 mark and they talk about the importance of living in nature. This video is in English and Japanese, with Japanese subtitles during the English sections and English subtitles during the Japanese sections so you are definitely going to understand it.

I hope you’ve enjoyed getting to know Hachimanjyu tea! I’ll be back soon with another profile of a tea farm (or maybe even farms) who make sustainable/ethical tea a priority!