Japanese Company Begins Selling Tea Bags Containing Green Tea, Dried Strawberries; A New Type of Tea with a Flavor That Changes as You Drink It

The Yomiuri Shimbun

12:00 JST, February 25, 2024

IWATA, Shizuoka — Farmers and people with disabilities jointly developed a luxury tea blend named Ichigo Gyokuro using local tea leaves and strawberries in Iwata, Shizuoka Prefecture.

The tea bags contain a blend of local specialty tea leaves and dried strawberries, creating a refreshing flavor.

Mixing the sweet taste of tea and the sour taste of strawberries proved to be difficult, so they repeatedly conducted trials while developing the new product with Ocha no Kanematsu, a local producer of tea leaves.

Company official Kimihiko Matsushita said: “When the tea is freshly brewed, the sour taste of the strawberries is prominent. But as the tea cools down, the sweetness of the strawberries becomes stronger. Because the flavor changes over time, we were able to develop a new type of tea which customers can enjoy until the last sip.”

One can containing five tea bags is priced at ¥1,000.