"Stringing Tea": Chapter 3: The Airport

[This is part of a series of postings about my recent tea-buying expedition in Japan. Click here to see the other installments.]

Looking back, I see that my chaos-filled pickup of the crew at the airport portended the turbulent adventures to come.

The plane carrying Chris, the cameraman, and Manuel, the sound engineer, touched down at Kumamoto Airport on time. The duo were already outside waiting next to their mountain of equipment when I pulled up to the curb at Arrivals with our intrepid director, Ilka, who had arrived ahead of the others to scout the southern Kyushu locations where we’d be filming.

Kumamoto Airport.

But Chris and Manuel, when taking inventory of the baggage disgorged onto the luggage carousel, had found that a highly important item had come up missing: the case of high-definition videocassettes. A call to the airline revealed that the wayward case, unlike its owners, hadn’t made the connecting flight from Tokyo to Kumamoto. And no tapes meant no filming.

We were in a big fix.

“Call the local TV stations,” Ilka said to me. This obviously wasn’t her first encounter with this corollary of Murphy’s Law (i.e., Whichever piece of luggage is most critical is the one that the airline will lose). “Someone there will know where we can buy the tapes.”

Yes, but … call a TV station, get a technical person on the line, and have him or her track down a very specific type of professional-grade high-definition videocassettete — at 4:00 in the afternoon on a Friday? In a small town like Kumamoto?

It might actually be easier to find Aladdin’s lamp, summon the genie, and have him find the tapes for us.

“And while you’re at it,” Ilka added, “call the airline and tell them to get our case of tapes to us quickly!”

Not having a magic lamp, I instead whipped out my trusty Softbank flip phone and punched in the airline’s “where the hell’s my luggage?” number. Navigating through the phone tree I reached a live human being who had good news and bad news. The good news: the missing case had been found and sent on its way. The bad news: instead of overnighting the case, the airline had used a standard courier service, which from Tokyo would take three whole days.

Three days that we just didn’t have.

Filming was slated to begin the next morning, and our über-tight schedule would not permit even one day of delay. This made it absolutely imperative to find those tapes somewhere in Kumamoto City in the next couple of hours.

I called both of the greater Kumamoto City area’s local television stations. My call to the first was answered by a lone receptionist who told me that all the engineers, technicians, and anyone else who would know about videocassettes were either out of the office or had already gone home for the weekend. So my call to the second TV station was going to be a real Hail Mary pass.

Luckily, the receptionist there transferred me to a late-working broadcast engineer who sympathized with our predicament. Before taking this studio job, he said, he had worked in the field for twenty years and was more than familiar with how logistical glitches like this could bring production to a grinding halt.

By this time, I had drained my cellphone’s battery and was tethered by the short-corded recharger to a wall outlet in a small snack bar just outside the arrival gate. I had dragged one of the small round tables closer to the wall so I could sit down with the phone. “Give me your phone number,” the friendly man said, “and I’ll ask around and call you back.”

In America, “I’ll call you” is sometimes shorthand for “Don’t ever call me again.” But this was Japan. And the man did sound sympathetic. Optimism was my only option. Especially since there were no magic lamps in sight.

Waiting for the kindly man’s callback, I took the opportunity to wipe the sweat off my brow and gulp down a glass of iced green tea from the snack bar. (I considered this transaction paying rent on the table.)

Outside, Ilka and Manuel were filling every nook and cranny of the van with those pieces of luggage that the airline had managed to get to Kumamoto. Meanwhile, Chris had wandered inside and taken up position next to me as I was frantically phoning. Chris wore a very British look of quiet concern.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity but was probably closer to ten minutes, my phone beeped to life. The broadcast engineer’s voice buzzed through the earpiece.

“I found a store in Kumamoto City that has some tapes on hand.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful” I said — because “I would like to nominate you for sainthood” doesn’t translate well into Japanese. Then I instinctively cupped my hand over the phone’s mouthpiece and turned to Chris. “So, how many cassettes do we need?”

“Well, if it’s going to take the courier three days to get us the case, we’ll need a dozen at least.”

I uncupped the phone. “How many do they say they have?”

“About six or seven, I think he said.”

“Right,” I responded. “Tell them we’ll take all of them.” (Six tapes or a dozen — I didn’t need to bother Chris with details like that.)

“Hai,” the engineer responded. “Oh, and you’d better hurry. The store closes in an hour.”

I thanked our saint/genie and hung up.

One hour? Let’s see . . . We were only about 50 or 55 minutes away, assuming a brisk tailwind. I hadn’t driven into Kumamoto City in about 10 years and I didn’t have a map of the city, which we weren’t scheduled to visit until much later in our itinerary.

But other than that, thing were looking up.

Cellphone in one hand, envelop with directions hastily scribbled on it in the other, and holding the steering wheel with both sweaty forearms, I drove our packed-to-the-ceiling van toward downtown Kumamoto City while pleading on the phone with the electronics store to stay open just a little bit longer until we got there, which really really, honestly this time, would be any minute now.

Finally we were in the home stretch, careening down Kumamoto’s “Streetcar Boulevard” (densha doori), only a few blocks away from the electronics store — at least according to my scribbled map.



Kumamoto City's Streetcar Boulevard (Densha Doori).


A nervous minute later, we spotted — and passed — the small electronics store crammed in between two massive, shiny office buildings on the opposite side of the street. I made an illegal U-turn across the streetcar tracks and came to jolting stop in the parking lot.

Huffing and puffing as we half-ran into the shop, Chris and I we were met by two pleasant surprises: Not only had the shopkeeper unearthed a full, unopened case of the tapes we needed — over 40 in all — but the price was lower than in Europe. (Public TV stations always have to be mindful of conserving the taxpayers’ money, you know.)

Tapes securely aboard, we rolled out of the parking lot and merged into the Friday evening traffic. The mood in the van was downright cheerful. A soft, cool evening breeze wafted in threw the open windows. Everyone was all smiles.

In the back seat, a happy Ilka chattered in German to Chris, who translated for me: “Congratulations on surviving your baptism by fire.” The crew and I had done some serious speed-team-building.

But little did I suspect that this hectic day would turn out to be an only too typical one in our three-week shoot.

Ignorance, however, truly is bliss, and as I piloted the van southbound, toward the hilly countryside of Hitoyoshi two hours away, I was blissfully proud of the day’s accomplishments.


—Mellow Monk

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"Stringing Tea": Behind-the-scenes photos

I finally posted photos of my recent tea-buying trip to Kyushu, Japan, which was documented by a European film crew for the educational TV series "GEO 360." I've been writing about these adventures in the "Stringing Tea" series of blog postings.



A picturesque shot of the crew taking a picturesque shot.


—Mellow Monk

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"Stringing Tea": Chapter 2: King Kong Island

[This is part of a series of postings about my recent tea-buying expedition in Japan. Click here to see the other installments.]

Yakushima — a World Heritage site — is a small, beautiful island located about 4 hours by ferry from Kagoshima City.

Actually, it's only 2 hours by high-speed boat if you don't need to take a car, but with our mountain of filming, lighting, and recording equipment, leaving the van behind was not an option.

In the world of Japanese green tea, Yakushima, with its semi-tropical climate, is famous as the source of the nation's earliest shincha, or new spring harvest. We were heading there to film my meeting with a grower about whom I had heard wonderful things. He specializes in 100 percent organically grown green tea.

Before I saw the inside of the ferry that would take us to Yakushima, I wasn't exactly excited about the prospects of the 4-hour ride, and my already gloomy spirits were further dampened (literally) by the heavy rain that morning. We drove the van into the ship's dark, cavernous hold, then walked up the narrow metal stairway to the passenger deck.

Our compartment turned out to be wonderful. Instead of seats, it consisted of a slightly raised, carpeted "sleeping platform" (somewhat like this one) roughly 20 feet by 20 feet, with blankets and pillows neatly placed all around. The room was brightly and naturally lit by large windows looking out onto the ocean.

We removed our shoes and stepped up. Three of us sat on the carpet, leaning against the cool steel bulkhead with our legs comfortably extended, while Manuel, the sound engineer, grabbed a blanket and pillow and went directly to a horizontal position. Ilka, the director, was reading a book, Chris, the cameraman, was listening to his iPod, and I was munching on a sandwich I had brought with me.

We were all in heaven — especially compared to the dark, cramped flights we had endured on our way to Japan. I had spent 11 hours elbow-battling my neighbor over our common armrest, eating crummy food, and watching bad movies on a tiny screen embedded into the back of the seat in front of me — whose occupant had, naturally, reclined the seat right into my knees as soon as the plane went wheels-up.

But those horrors were a distant memory as I lay stretched comfortably out in the ferry compartment, letting the low, powerful hum of the engines lull me into a doze.

Why can't the airlines be like this? Imagine how comfortable and relaxing a long flight would be if you could lay down and snooze, read, or watch a movie in a 180-degree flat position. The airlines should just remove all the seats from their planes. It's not as if being strapped into a seat has ever saved anyone's life in a fiery midair collision.

As I pondered these thoughts, the ship's PA system crackled to life and the captain announced we were only 30 minutes from our destination.

Chris removed his earbuds. "Time to get some shots of you as we approach the island," he said. Heading to the wind-blown bow of the ferry, we were greeted by an island shrouded in mist, with impossibly steep mountain peaks.

"It looks like King Kong island," I quipped. But my comment was met with silence. Either the others were entranced by the island's beauty ... or they didn't get the joke.

Once ashore we headed straight to the organic tea fields. Chris was positively thrilled when he saw none of the frost-preventing fans that had spoiled many an otherwise perfect shot elsewhere on our journey. The grower we met explained that the island's near-tropical climate was free of frost, hence the absence of the fans.

While talking with the grower inside his funky wooden tea shop, our conversation was interrupted by a loud, startling metallic crash. Rushing outside, we saw that a member of the crew — who shall remain nameless — wanting to move the van out of a shot, had backed right into the only other vehicle in the expansive parking lot. Luckily, the other vehicle was a thick-framed truck. Close inspection didn't even reveal the slightest of scratches — in contrast to the deep dent in the rear hatchback door of our van. Oh well. Another unexpected expense. That's filmmaking.

Once I had seen all I had come to see on the island — and tried the grower's amazing tea and bought a couple of samples to take back to the States — I caught the last ferry out. I spent three nights with friends and family in Kagoshima and Aso while the crew enjoyed the sights of Yakushima — waterfalls, wild monkeys, and egg-laying sea turtles, just to name a few.

They had a wonderful time. Which was good, because they would need those positive memories to get them through some grueling shoots when we met again in Kagoshima.

Thar she blows — King Kong Island, otherwise known as Yakushima.

—Mellow Monk

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"Stringing Tea": Intro & Chapter 1

Intro: Just How Does One “String Tea”?

[This is the first of a series of postings about my recent tea-buying expedition in Japan. Stay tuned for further installments.]

On a recent tea-finding trip through the wilds of Kyushu, Japan, I was followed by a three-person film crew from Europe’s Arte TV network. They were filming a 1-hour documentary on Japanese green tea for Arte's "Geo 360" series.

The subject of this installment of "Geo 360," which is due to be broadcast in September or October, is Japanese green tea. Arte chose Kyushu—and in particular Kumamoto—because of its natural, unspoiled environment. And they chose me because Kumamoto is where Mellow Monk's Green Teas are grown.

I was honored to have been chosen by such a prestigious public television network.

But filmmaking is serious business. And busy business. The shooting schedule was über-tight. The film crew and I lived out of a suitcase. Each day we drove far enough and fast enough to alter Earth’s rotation. We had to — we were under constant pressure right up until the night before we all went home.

On this three-week adventure, I was a tea-buyer second and a stringer first. No one is sure of the origins of the word stringer, but if I had to guess based on my own experience, I’d say it derived from an ancient word for “slave.” Or maybe “punishment.”

A stringer is a film crew’s interpreter, travel agent, interviewer, negotiator, luggage carrier, and all-around gofer. It may sound complicated, but a stringer's job is exceedingly simple: A stringer’s job is to Make It Happen.

For instance, if the director says, “We’re going to spend the next two nights in Hitoyoshi and film the tea fields there,” then the stringer books the rooms, clears everything with the tea grower, and finds the hotel on a map. The stringer Makes It Happen. If the cameraman says, “Can you get him to do the same thing again so we can film it from a different angle?” the stringer Makes It Happen. If the sound engineer wants the gardener to shut off the leaf blower for the next ten minutes, then the sound engineer Makes It Happen (in that particular case).

Anyone who’s ever translated between two languages knows that an interpreter is also a diplomat. Actually, this is true of anyone who communicates a message from one person to another. “Don’t shoot the messenger” is an invocation that isn’t always successful, and so a messenger with a strong survival instinct always softens the message.

So, when the director says in English, “What the hell is he doing? Tell him to do that again and not to bounce all over the place when he’s talking,” a smart stringer will put it slightly differently. Such as: “Wow, that was great. Just great. But the electromagnetic pulse from a solar flare zapped the camera, so could we do that one more time?” Such diplomacy is absolutely consistent with the Make It Happen directive. After all, as we say in America, you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. (To which some may retort, Yes but you can catch more flies with scheissen than with honey.)

Chapter 1: This Is Not Possible

“This is not possible,” Mr. Matsuzaki said to me in Japanese. This shy, soft-spoken man — who had hardly made eye contact with me at all during the long hours we had spent together that day — was now staring me dead in the eye. Through thick, nearsighted eyeglasses he gave me a dumbstruck look, as if I had just asked him to cut off a finger or give up his firstborn.

Confused, I responded weakly. “You can’t?” What I was really thinking to myself was Can’t do what? Can’t pour hot water on tea? How the hell else do you make tea?

We were filming Mr. Matsuzaki making a hot cup of tea in a beautiful tea room — like a cross between this one and this one — on his tea farm. But when we got to the part where he was finally supposed to pour hot water into a teapot full of tea leaves, he balked.

Unaware of what we were saying, the film crew waited patiently. The cameraman, Chris, raised his eyebrows curiously. Manuel, the sound engineer, bedecked with wires, cables, and other sound-recording accoutrements, paused with his usual tired, oh-what’s-the-point-in-complaining look. The director, Ilka, stroked her chin pensively. The much-feared Furrow had yet to appear in her brow, which meant I might actually live to see tomorrow.

But I couldn’t explain to the crew what the problem was: There was no time. And I wasn’t even sure myself what the problem was. Besides, I was the stringer. The stringer’s job is to Make It Happen. And when things don’t happen, that means trouble. Such as dinner at ten o'clock instead of eight or nine.

I decided to play dumb with Mr. Matsuzaki. “All you have to do is pour the water into the teapot,” I smiled as pleasantly as I could.

“It’s not possible,” he repeated. “That’s not the way you’re supposed to do it.”

“Then how are you supposed to do it?”

“You have to cool the water first. You can’t pour it directly from the kettle into the teapot.”

A sharp, loud voice shattered the quiet. “What’s the problem?” asked Ilka. The Furrow was near. I could feel it.

“He says he has to cool the water before he pours it onto the tea.”

“There’s no time for that!”

Chris chimed in helpfully. “Tell him you can’t even see the kettle in the closeup. Only the stream of water flowing into the pot.”

I translated. I added my own pleas. But Mr. Matsuzaki was adamant. “That’s not the way you’re supposed to do it.”

But there was no room for negotiation. Once the director and cameraman had made up their mind, my job was to Make It Happen. Period.

“It’s okay,” I said to Mr. Matsuzaki. Desperation had crept into my voice. “The kettle won’t even be in the shot. It’s a closeup, so no one will know.”

With a little more prodding, Mr. Matsuzaki finally relented and poured hot water from the small silver kettle into the earthenware teapot. As he did, Chris filmed, Manuel recorded, and Ilka watched intently on the small monitor. The pour was perfect. No second take necessary.

The next shot was to be of the brewed tea being poured into a small white teacup. Once Chris was finished repositioning and refocusing the high-definition Sony movie camera, just enough time had passed for the tea to steep.

Mr. Matsuzaki poured the green infusion into the cup. Everything looked fine to my untrained eye. But Ilka was clearly unhappy.

“This is not possible,” she said in her Teutonically accented English. What’s not possible? I thought to myself. That tea leaves turned hot water green? What the hell else is supposed to happen?

“This is not possible,” Herr Direktor repeated. She locked her gaze on me. This was obviously my fault. “The tea is too dark. Much too dark. Why is it not bright green?”

I turned to Mr. Matzuaki, who, although he had no idea what we were saying, had paused instinctively, sensing the bad vibes in the air. “It’s the color,” I translated. “She says it’s too dark.”

“Of course it’s dark,” he responded matter-of-factly. “The water was too hot. When the water’s too hot, the tea comes out dark.”

I explained this to Ilka. “Oh,” she responded with uncharacteristic meekness. “Then . . . let’s do it again. With cooler water.”

“Can we do it again?” I asked Mr. Matsuzaki.

“Yes,” he replied softly. “This time we’ll brew the tea correctly.”




This is the kind of yuzamashi (literally "water cooler") that Mr. Matsuzaki used to cool the hot water when we decided to make tea correctly.


—Mellow Monk

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