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PrologueCalcuttans are great lovers of reading. The city’s College Street is lined with bookshopsof varying sizes filled with people ready to empty their wallets.

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Loose tea (leaf tea)This means black tea packed ina tea cannister. As tea leaves aremeasured with a caddy spoon,
it is necessary to distinguishloose tea from tea bags. It iscalled ‘ bara-cha’ in Japanese.

Tea provides relaxation and tranquillity of mind. Obtainsome leaves, and at home, boil water, brew according to
your preferred strength and then pour the tea into acup – as a result we feel relaxed and find spiritual satisfaction
both through the performance of this rite and the passing oftime. Drinking tea is not simply the quenching of thirst; it is alsoa cultural act. This is why it is known as ‘tea culture’.
However, these days since the availability on the market ofindustrially produced RTD-Teas (ready-to-drink teas: tinned
and bottled liquid tea essence), the value of tea itself has
considerably changed. When I look into the marketing aspect of
the Japanese black tea industry, I feel that I can sense the firstsigns of a decline.
At the beginning of 1970, when the black tea market wasliberalised in Japan, ‘black tea’ simply meant loose tea (leaf tea).
However, tea bags sold as a ‘handy product’ soon dominated themarket as did also ‘ instant tea’ which appeared as a matching
concept to an established ‘ instant coffee’ . Though consumers
selected these different types of tea according to TPO (Time,Place and Opportunity), there remains a traditionally ‘ wise’ or8Instant teaMilk and fruits-extract added topowdered black tea-extract andsugar and tea is ready by adding
hot or cold water.

informed consumption pattern.
Therefore, even if recently introduced liquid black tea has
appeared on the market, I had assumed that this kind of
black tea would not in any way influence the conventional ‘wise’
tea consumption – black tea, tinned or bottled, having been
accepted as an independently different type of commercial
product such as soft-drink with nothing to do with conventional
black tea. But due to a lack of understanding, this assumption
has proved wrong.
Our life tends to move according to economic laws, particularly
in Japan where changes are swift. My feeling is that ‘tea culture’is being ignored with tea itself just surviving in its instant form
as an industrially produced soft drink. This may seem anextreme or outrageous claim, but it would be true to say that wehave a new generation which has only just recently discovered‘black tea’ simply as a soft drink sold in vending machines. They
believe that black tea as soft drink is the authentic black tea; thatis to say, quite unbelievably, there is not the common knowledge
that black tea is made with tea leaves and hot water.

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Five Golden Rules
1.Use fresh, good quality tea
leaves.
2.Use slightly more tea leaves
than required.
3.Use fresh water.
4.Boil water thoroughly.
5.Allow to steep for a while ina pot.

Also there is the strange phenomenon of a ‘ black tea boom’created by the mass media. There is a flood of catalogues,primers, instruction manuals and magazines introducing
hundreds of black tea recipes. However, I believe many
consumers may have been disappointed with the resulting tea,as they took those beautifully illustrated variations of tea
seriously by following these time consuming recipes. Theserecipes include black tea with whipped cream and fruit, mainly
I should think only to look good photographed. Undrinkablesimply as tea, perhaps the term ‘ visual tea’ would be more
appropriate – it is more natural that fruit should be eaten by
itself. But regrettably the majority do not see it this way, so ourconclusion must be that black tea in Japan may be in decline.
The ‘black tea boom’ is, therefore, a myth.

cities, the unitary one pound (450g) of loose tea is not available
for purchase. This type of tea once freely available during the1970s has disappeared from the shops, the reason being that itwas not as profitable to sell one pound packets among only 5 percent of consumers, than to satisfy the demand of other 95 percent consumers who have not the slightest interest in black tea.
The best outlets for this kind of marketing are the automatic
vending machines which are available everywhere in Japan. Halfof these five million or so machines are for selling soft drinks.
Through this outlet, black tea consumption, such as it is, hasspread to those 95 per cent who have not drunk tea much before.
As I have mentioned, we now have a generation who know only
tinned black tea as the ‘real’ thing.

However, the fact remains that 5 per cent of Japan’s population
still do enjoy black tea in the traditional way and remain
unswayed by the latest craze. However, the present distribution
system of black tea to these 5 per cent has become almost
impossible due to a fixed Japanese distribution system whichprevails over economic rationality and therefore cannot copewith these few consumers’ demands. For instance, in provincial

Choosing between liquid tea packed in tins and bottles, or
strange tea decorated for visual effect, is difficult. But in thematter of deciding which of the two Japanese black teas ispreferable, ‘ chai’ stands on its own. Possibly ‘ chai’ is alreadyfamiliar to those who follow ethnic fashion, or are familiar withtea shop menus. And here we are speaking of a type of tea madeby stewing and boiling, rather than by following the formal
method of the ‘Five Golden Rules’.

1011Title:01)prologue Page:6‘To save unnecessary expenses, instead of eating breakfast I got
into the habit of just drinking a cup of chai at a chai-seller
whom I had been frequenting. After having casually rinsed thecup and saucer in a bucket of water, he filled the cup right to thebrim. First I sipped the overflowed tea in the saucer and thendrank from the cup. If the tea was too hot I poured a little more
into the saucer to cool, and drank that first’. (Midnight Express
written by Kotaro Sawaki, published by Shincho Bunko.)

been concerned with providing a formally brewed pot-service,
I find these experiences of mine have caused me seriously
to reconsider the connection between myself and tea. Indeed
chai is a drink which forges a relationship between tea andhuman beings which is all the closer for being simple in itsform. And in this way we can feel the actual power which
tea has. To tell the truth, during my trip to India in 1993, I was
greatly moved by my experiences in the course of repeatedencounters with ‘chai’.

‘At the side of the road, a man was boiling water over burning
rubbish in order to make and sell chai; I exchanged a coin for acup – it was nice and sweet. There were a lot of flies
everywhere, and I had to move my cup all the time while
drinking’ . (by Yuji Shimokawa, Seeing the World from the BusRoof, published by Travel Journal.)

Though I am not completely under the spell of India, I decided,
nevertheless, to write about this one aspect of the country – theworld of chai – from the point of view of a tea merchant. And
my hope is that it will enable readers to question current
attitudes to black tea and its consumption.

Such is the natural harmony that exists between human beingsand tea, that one thinks little of the actual quality of the leaves,water, and utensils; we take no account of whether or not the tea
comes from a tin, or of its value.

India is such a vast country. And life being so short I am unableto write a book worthy of the title ‘ The Chai shops of India’ .
Instead I limit myself to one titled ‘Chai shops in Calcutta’ andleave it to others to write about India as a whole.

After a long association with tea during which I have largely

Previously in my Handbook of Tea (Kocha no Hon), I had

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expressed disapproval of the word ‘chai’. But I now realise that
this view is dogmatic in the extreme and therefore unwarranted.
For me now it is a most charming word; so let me introduce youto its charm.

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