Mr. Tanaka's family has grown tencha in the hills above Uji since his great-grandfather's time. The morning we arrived, the tarps were already up — the last shading period before harvest, the leaves turning a deeper, almost black green in the dark.
He picks by hand, still, for the top rows. “The machine doesn't know which leaf is ready,” he told us, without looking up. Three mornings with him taught us more about patience than about tea — though for him, we suspect, those are the same lesson.