Grades of New Tea

This is a picture from the same store as shown in yesterday's post. Although not readable from this picture, this stand is displaying 2 types and 4 different grades of Shizuoka tea.

The two types of tea featured are Saemitori and Yabukita and each is priced 840 to 2,100 yen based on grade. The Saemitori is said to have a strong umami taste and low astringency. The Yabukita is said to have a strong aroma and a nice balance of umami and astringent tastes. The only difference mentioned for the high grades is that they are hand picked.

These are typical grades, but if you ask the shopkeeper, much more expensive grades are also available.

Spring Tea Harvest

The local tea shops in Japan all have banners out in front announcing the "new tea" or newly harvested tea leaves. People who really like good tea will spend a lot for good, fresh tea leaves. There are multiple grades of tea which are difficult to understand and often are specific to the store.

Shizuoka and Kyoto are easily the most well-known region for tea production in Japan, but other areas such as Kyushu also produce tea.

Horse Meat

I just happened to come across this restaurant the other night. It was very late, so I didn't have time to give it a try. Anyway, even though the sign says that it is an "izakaya" or drinking and eating establishment, without any windows it looks more like a "sunakku" or private club.

In any case, I thought it was interesting because the specialty is horse meat. It is not unusual to see horse meat in Japan, but this is the first time I have seen a horse meat specialty restaurant. While I assume there are others, it is still not an everyday sight.

　

This restaurant is named Pops and it claims on the sign that the food is imported directly from Kumamoto (Kyushu).
　

For those who have trouble distinguishing between Asian countries and their cuisine, Japanese do eat whale and horse, but other animals such as dogs, cats, rats, etc. are never found for sale in Japan.

Floods in the US and Commodity Prices

Just as some people had been hoping that commodity prices and oil prices might have peaked, we are now seeing historic flooding in the US Midwest. Many farmers who might have been enjoying the high prices for corn and other commodities are now losing their crops and in some cases their homes.

Very sad, but it is also going to have a ripple effect - first on the crops directly effected, corn and soy, then on other grains as well, since there is a certain amount of interchangeability. It might also have an effect on oil prices as corn is increasingly being used for biofuel. Corn prices have reached 7 dollars per bushel for the first time ever, and oil prices are now being predicted to reach 140 dollars per barrel (although I have not seen a flood-oil price link referred to yet).

Higher Profits on Higher Food Prices?

According to this article in Investopeida, US food producers are showing increased profits resulting from higher prices. Heinz raised prices 4.5% and saw net income increase 7%. General Mills has seen a 17% earnings gain at the same time it was reducing box sizes to offset higher ingredient prices. If that works for them, great, but in Japan, the talk at many companies is simply how to stay profitable.

The article credits brand loyalty and stronger oversees sales. I am not in marketing, but I would guess that brand loyalty is not nearly as strong in Japan, because a culture of always trying something new has been cultivated. Consumers see a price they consider too high or a box they think is not as big as it should be and they simply buy something else.

Japanese Dairy Farmers are Also Squeezed

Japanese dairy farmers are also being squeezed by high food prices, or at least the Japanese government thinks so. According to this article, the 187.1 billion yen in supports for dairy farmers and stockbreeders, which was already up 63.2 billion yen from last year is going to be raised an additional 70 billion yen. These are mostly in the form of unit-subsidies.

I feel sure the butter shortage has also influenced this move, although any boosts in production will lag far behind a stimulus - especially in the dairy industry, where you cannot exactly plant more cows next year, you have to breed more herds of dairy cattle to make a difference.

Serving Size 2 Food Companies

Food companies are also reformulating or cutting serving size. Smaller packages, fewer slices, etc. has become the norm. Here is an example of a convenience store sausage wrap.

　

This was pretty obvious because the same product used to have 2 sausages, but now has only 1. The size of the remaining sausage might be a bit bigger, but the total size has certainly been reduced and the price, to be best of my recollection, has not changed. (Unfortunately, this tells you something about my eating habits.)

Serving Size 1 Restaurants

My family and I occasionally eat at a Japanese food family restaurant chain called Yumean (夢案), which we all enjoy. I took this picture last month, but at the time we were all surprised and amused to see that the size of this child's plate had shrunk quite a bit. Since that time, we have noticed the same thing a many other restaurants - often in the form a new menu. Hoping you will not notice, I am sure. Because of rising prices and possibly also due to smaller or unsatisfactory new menu items, it is easy to see that restaurants are not as crowded as they were only several months ago.

Reduced serving sizes are especially interesting to foreigners, because we typically laughed a small serving sizes before the current food crisis. I have generally assumed that Japanese serving sizes are about half of what they are in the US. This does not leave you very much room to cut further. Small serving sizes are undoubtedly more healthy than the huge platters you receive in the US, but at some point even Japanese are going to be left hungry.

Food Prices in Japan . . . Going Up

Food prices are big news all over the world and Japan is no exception. In fact, there is little upside to high food prices here, because Japan produces such a small percentage of what it consumes. Food companies and restaurants are caught in a squeeze, just trying to eek out a profit. Raise prices too much and you loose customers.

In a very unscientific survey, sampling size n=1, my wife said typical trips to the grocery store which used to cost around 6 to 7 thousand yen, now lost around 9 thousand yen.

Coffee Hunter

Coca Cola's Georgia coffee brand has come out with an interesting new product called Coffee Hunter, which has an silhouette of someone who might be confused with Indiana Jones. This explorer travels the world looking for the best coffee beans. This looks to be the first in a series.

　

This coffee is from beans grown in Flores Island, Indonesia. 「コーヒーハンターが世界中の産地を巡って探し出してきたとっておきのコーヒー豆をお届けました。」 It tastes pretty standard to me, but it might very well be a good promotion to go along with the new Indiana Jones movie.