The Division of Tea Research has two research stations. The Kanaya tea research station is located in Shizuoka pref. and the Makurazaki tea research station is in Kagoshima pref. We are conducting study on breeding tea cultivars, agronomy, farm management, tea processing/manufacturing, quality evaluation, utilization of health-benefit components . The Kanaya tea research station is developing new tea production technologies by researchers with diverse expertise. The Makurazaki tea research station is developing tea cultivars under warm climate and holds a large number of accessions of tea genetic resources from both domestic and overseas. In addition, in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and related associations , we have been attending the FAO-IGG on Tea (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation Intergovernmental Group on Tea), ISO/TC34/SC8 (the International Organization for Standardization, Food/Tea) and other international conference related to tea to collect information for expanding the export of Japanese tea.
