Shizuoka Pref. Festival Heralds Season’s 1st Tea Leaf Harvest

The Yomiuri Shimbun

16:10 JST, May 15, 2023

SHIMADA, Shizuoka — The Kanaya tea festival held last month heralded the first tea harvest of the season in Shimada, Shizuoka Prefecture. The city is a leading tea production area.

About 500 girls and women dressed in tea pickers’ signature outfit — a patterned kimono with a bright-red tasuki sash and a tenugui kerchief covering the head — paraded through a street near JR Kanaya Station. They danced to folk songs such as “Chakkiri-bushi” and “Kanaya Ondo” in what was the first day of the two-day event.

The association to preserve and promote the festival held the biennial event after a five-year hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Spectators also came to see various floats pulled by youths.