StoryOur tea making
About us
We moved from southern Thailand to our favorite town, Wazuka, to grow tea and rice. Our mission is to farm: caring for smiles of consumers, sustainability of farm land, and the global environment.
About us
We moved from southern Thailand to our favorite town, Wazuka, to grow tea and rice. Our mission is to farm: caring for smiles of consumers, sustainability of farm land, and the global environment.
Introduction
I, the representative of Jack Farm, am originally from a small village in southern Thailand where natural rubbers are grown widely. Natural rubbers are a cash crop for locals which means they harvest rubber saps, sell the saps to buyers, get cash, and that’s all. They can’t tell their own stories of cultivation and can’t control the price. I grew up watching them from childhood.
I have started to engage in various international volunteer activities since 16 years old. Through the activities for agriculture, environment, community, and welfare, I realized that agriculture is the work that affects natural environments deeply, which made me think I wanted to practice sustainable and productive farming.
After several interesting experiences such as a NPO coordinator, a horse therapist at a Thai Children Development Foundation, starting a family with Natsuki, and living in a forest for creating “a life knowing we have enough,” I encountered tea and rice in Wazuka Town, Kyoto, Japan. I thought I could challenge myself to deliver tea and rice grown by ourselves with our stories. So, I learned farming tea and rice for several years in Wazuka. It takes a lot of time and labor to cultivate without agrochemicals and chemical fertilizers, but every day I feel the satisfaction of interacting with nature to deliver safe and healthy agricultural products.
Our three goals for growing tea and rice
Smiles of consumers
We want you to smile when you drink the tea and eat the rice that we have made with all our heart.
Our tea and rice are not only delicious, but also safe and healthy, and you can feel the story behind the food.
Chemical-free and safe for the body
We work to make healthy soils and composts every day. Our tea and rice are grown in harmony with nature and safe for the body.
The brown rice used in Genmaicha tea is also pesticide-free brown rice grown by Jackfarm.
Single origin
We can tell stories about our tea and rice; where they are grown, who makes them, and passions of producers. You can enjoy characteristics of our fields through our single origin products.
Tea,Brown rice,Matcha to condition your body
Green tea is more abundant in antioxidants such as polyphenols, L-theanine and catechins compared to other teas. Green tea conditions your body and is suitable for keeping your beauty and health.
Brown rice and matcha are also highly nutritious and have been attracting attention worldwide. The riceberries grown at Jackfarm are also attracting attention as a superfood, containing a lot of healthful ingredients such as anthocyanins and carotenoids.
Sustainability of farm land
Restore historic farm land and pass them on to future generations Wazuka Town is located in Kyoto
Prefecture and it has 800 years of history growing Uji-cha, the most prestigious green tea in Japan. Wazuka Town accounts for 41% of tea production in Kyoto Prefecture and is also known as a production area of high-grade green tea. However, Wazuka is facing several agricultural problems. The farmers are getting old and many are about to retire. Young generations move to cities. Abandoned fields are increasing.
We are not originally from Wazuka, but as people who care about Wazuka and the Earth, we want to maintain historic farm land without stressing environment and send messages domestically and internationally, to maintain farm land for the next generations.
No burden on the global environment
Earth-friendly farming methods as global citizens: We observe conditions of soils
carefully to balance out the lively activities of soil organisms. To achieve that, we don’t use any agrochemicals and chemical fertilizers.
Organic farmers are less than 0.5% of the farmers in Japan (Reference: 2010 World Census of Agriculture and Forestry, Organic Agriculture Data Report of the fiscal year of 2010 by the Labelling and Standards Division of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan) We hope that the number of new organic farmers will increase and that we will share our methods and high-quality resources for agriculture.
About cultivation
Jackfarm uses farming methods that allow crops to flourish in the natural environment of Wazuka.
All farms are grown without the use of pesticides or chemical fertilizers.
| Tea (green tea, black tea, matcha) | natural cultivationNot only do they not use pesticides, they also do not use organic fertilizers or compost, and they do not pull out weeds, but they grow using healthy soil and the natural power of the crops.The green tea is JAS certified organic (rough tea). Other than green tea, the other tea leaves are not certified, but they are the same tea leaves. |
|---|---|
| Rice (Riceberry Hinohikari) | Grown without the use of pesticides or chemical fertilizersThis farming method does not use pesticides and instead uses organic fertilizers (homemade rice bran, home-grown rice, etc.).Riceberries are sold as brown rice. Hinohikari is roasted and used as an ingredient in "brown rice tea." |
Why no pesticides?
Not using pesticides was something we decided on when we first started farming, and it was something that was natural to us.
We have always had the idea of wanting to preserve the Earth's environment in as good a way as possible, and growing crops without the use of pesticides is an extension of that idea.
Therefore, at Jackfarm, from the time we were founded until now, we have never used pesticides or chemical fertilizers in our fields.
Jackfarm's tea is harvested once a year. Generally, it is harvested four times a year (from the 1st to the 4th harvest), but with natural cultivation, tea can only be harvested once.
After the spring harvest, the tea leaves are cut off. They are circulated back into the soil and left to grow until the following year. Although the number of harvests is reduced, the tea retains the original power of the crop.
The color of Jackfarm's tea leaves is a sparkling yellow-green.
In fact, this is a lighter color than regular tea leaves, and is in a state known as lack of flavor. At this point, the mainstream approach is to add flavor with fertilizer, but at Jackfarm, we grow the tea leaves as they are, yellow-green.
The tea leaves do not produce any more flavor than they should, and they do not turn a dark green, but many people enjoy the natural, wild flavor of the tea leaves.
Enjoy the refreshing taste and fusion of sweetness and astringency. Perfect for when you want to take the next step.
Until cultivation without the use of pesticides or chemical fertilizers is established
Previously, another farmer had been cultivating regular tea on this land, so we had a lot of trouble switching over to jackfarm's pesticide- and chemical-free cultivation.
If we were to compare it to a human, it would be like suddenly running out of both medicine and nutritional drinks, so we would get sick easily, and at the beginning of the business, we sometimes couldn't harvest.
I went out to the fields every day and patiently observed the state of the tea and the soil. I tried to find ways to keep the tea healthy while observing the state of the fields. (This trial and error process continues to this day.)
The power of the plant is amazing, and after about three years the tea began to show more wild power, and we were able to produce a stable harvest. The tea's innate power seems to have strengthened, and it has grown into a tea that is resistant to disease even when grown naturally. It also seems to get stronger every year.