Akio Onozawa from Mangrove Mountain on the New South Wales Central Coast is intending to be the first green tea farm in Australia who use centuries old techniques from Japan.
He said that planting green tea is a Japanese culture and wants to preserve this culture and pass it on to the next generation.
But he was surprised to figure out that every single agricultural farming ranging from fruits, vegetable require irrigation which is totally different from what he saw in Japan where there is plenty of rain and they don't worry much about water.
There are many benefits from drinking green tea according to Healthline 1 green tea can help reducing the risk of some type of cancer especially breast, prostate and colorectal cancer. It is also claims that drinking green tea help fat burning and reducing blood sugar in type 2 Diabetes as well as loose weight and less chance of obesity. It also keeps your mental active and physical strengths with stamina which help preventing you from dementia or Alzheimer. Drinking tea could kill some type of bacteria and reducing your chance of getting influenza virus as well as maintain your oral health. And it could also help prevent you from getting cardiovascular diseases like heart disease and stroke which is the world biggest killer. Study in Japan also shows that those who drink 5 cups a day are unlikely to die during the 6 years study.
However, drinking green tea could also post health risk if it is contaminated with pollutants or pesticides or drink it in high does for a long time especially when drinking Matcha a whole green tea in power form.
According to WebMD 2, "green tea can cause stomach upset and constipation for some people. Green tea extracts have been reported to cause liver and kidney problems in rare cases therefore children under 18 shouldn't take it. Green tea is POSSIBLY UNSAFE when taken by mouth long-term or in high-doses. It can cause side effects because of the caffeine". It also claims that it might lead to miscarriage due to high content of caffeine so pregnant women shouldn't drink more than two cups a day.
However, there will still need more researches to be done to really pinpoint what are the exact benefits and side effects from drinking green tea.
Green tea (Camellia sinensis) has long history in Asia especially originated from China in Chinese mythical folk prehistoric Chinese Emperor Shennong and then spreading throughout Asia According to Wikipedia 3.
Despites all these arguments, if in doubt and before you drink it, you should consult with health and nutritional professionals just for a peace of mind.
Nevertheless there are also now as many 20 green tea farms are mushrooming up through out Australia especially in Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia and New South Wales, as Japanese tea manufacturer Kunitaro wants to find new lands to plant more tea to export to Japan.
As green tea has becoming a more lucrative business, it attracts many Australian farmers to try their luck.
If you have 5 hectare of land, you can produce up to 20 tonnes a year.
Due to the different season of tea harvesting in Japan, Australia could supply Japanese tea demand, where Australia can harvest twice a year in Spring and during Christmas.
With recent $100,000 grant from the Australian government to Australian Green Tea Cooperative which is found by John Robb, Australian green tea industry will have a brighter future.
Agricultural analysts say Australia could one day become world's tea exporter, and Australia will compete directly with the world's biggest tea exporter that is China even though it just produce only 1% of world's tea.
However, Australia has it advantage as green food products due to its clean environment and there are no pesticide used for these tea or they are organic. Therefore though Australia is new to this market, it can leverage this niche.#
Further readings:
- https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/top-10-evidence-based-health-benefits-of-green-tea#section10
- https://www.webmd.com/vitamins/ai/ingredientmono-960/green-tea
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_tea
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