At Shigehiko Suzuki’s tea shop in central Japan, adorned with a traditional “noren” drape, the customers are flooding in but more to scoop up gelato or cake than to sip the bright-green tea.
This photo taken on May 16, 2019 shows a farmer taking a break while harvesting matcha tea leaves in Fujieda, Shizuoka prefecture. PHOTO BY CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP Sensing the shift, Suzuki branched into matcha-flavored ice cream nine years ago, opening a shop where customers can choose gelato from seven levels of bitterness.‘Not many successors’
This photo taken on May 16, 2019 shows a man working at a Japanese tea factory in Fujieda, Shizuoka prefecture. AFP PHOTO “There’s the cultural tea ceremony and practical bottled tea. But something in-between, like a cafe where customers can enjoy tea in comfortable surroundings, didn’t really exist before,” Ihara said.