Shizuoka has the largest tea-growing area in Japan: 11,600 hectares in 2025, or 34.7 percent of the national total, and it also leads in the value of crude tea produced (9.9 billion yen in 2024, 31.5 percent). In Hamamatsu's Tenryu Ward, Tenryu tea is grown along the Tenryu and Atago rivers, where the tea trade has flourished since the Meiji era; tea from these misty mountain gardens is known for its aroma. I don't know exactly where the tea I drank came from.
This moment in the journey
Tea and a special dried persimmon
Back at the house, I had a snack at the table by the window: Shizuoka green tea and the house's special dried persimmon. On a small plate beside the teacup sat a single persimmon the color of amber. Such a beautiful color.
Split with the fingers, the inside was soft and syrupy. A moist texture, a rich flavor, a gentle sweetness. Drying makes it keep longer, and makes it this much more delicious. Somewhere between fruit and confection; the prototype of sweets, perhaps.
Beyond the shoji, the afternoon mountains. I sat at the window and looked out for a while. Outside, the Shiba dog sat in the middle of the lane, watching me.
Watch this scene on YouTube4:18
More notes from this journey
Hamamatsu, Shizuoka
Rice cooked over a kamado
In this house the tiled kamado is still in daily use.
From: Lighting the kamado in a house in the sky
Hamamatsu, Shizuoka
Satsuki's lunch box
A recreation of the lunch Satsuki gets up early to make in My Neighbor Totoro: rice cooked over a kamado, grilled dried sardines, green peas, pink sakura denbu…
From: Lighting the kamado in a house in the sky
Hamamatsu, Shizuoka
Wild boar hot pot over the hearth
Most of Hamamatsu's Tenryu Ward is forest, and the Tenryu Gibier Fes, a festival of wild game, is held in Futamata (its fifth edition was in May 2025).
From: Lighting the kamado in a house in the sky
Hamamatsu, Shizuoka
Skewered yamame trout
Every summer a yamame-catching festival is held on the Misakubo River (the 28th was in July 2025).
From: Lighting the kamado in a house in the sky
Hamamatsu, Shizuoka
Osawa, the village in the sky
A village high in the mountains of Misakubo, in Hamamatsu's Tenryu Ward.
From: Lighting the kamado in a house in the sky
Hamamatsu, Shizuoka
Shohachiman Shrine and the Wishing Bell in the Sky
The only shrine in Osawa, with a stone torii and a small hall in a grove of cedars.
From: Lighting the kamado in a house in the sky
More notes from Tokai
Numazu, Shizuoka
Numazu bowl (Numazu-don)
Numazu-don is a local specialty born at a Numazu bowl contest in 2000: rice cooked with dried horse mackerel, topped with raw whitebait, raw sakura shrimp and c…
From: Gifts of the sea in a town that looks out on Mt. Fuji
Numazu, Shizuoka
Sakura shrimp kakiage
Every sakura shrimp landed in Japan comes from Suruga Bay.
From: Gifts of the sea in a town that looks out on Mt. Fuji
Numazu, Shizuoka
Horse mackerel chazuke
The half of the chopped horse mackerel I had set aside while making the Numazu bowl spent the night in soy sauce and became the next morning's chazuke.
From: Gifts of the sea in a town that looks out on Mt. Fuji
Numazu, Shizuoka
Rice-ball bento in bamboo sheath
I wrapped freshly made rice balls in bamboo sheath with rolled omelet and pickled cucumber and carried them down to the water.
From: Making sushi with a view of Mt. Fuji
Numazu, Shizuoka
The Numazu special: nigiri and gunkan sushi
Numazu Port is where the fish of Suruga Bay come ashore, with a street of restaurants serving seafood fresh off the boats.
From: Making sushi with a view of Mt. Fuji
Numazu, Shizuoka
Asa-Ichi, the morning market in the Arcade Meitengai
A morning market held in the shopping arcade near Numazu Station on the first day of every month except January, from 8 a.m.
From: Gifts of the sea in a town that looks out on Mt. Fuji