Tea for the Journey:

by Cat Kerr

Suddenly, all of the passengers — young salarymen, mothers on day trips with their children, and a few foreigners like me — turn their eyes to the windows on my side of the train. For hours, most of them have ignored the views of persimmons hanging to dry on lines of twine that stretch across residential balconies, and cats lounging in the sunlight amid backyard vegetable gardens. So I wonder what novel sight is now demanding everyone’s attention.

I look up from my bottle of Ito En unsweetened green tea, a commodity product, a commodity green tea that is ubiquitous at every train station kiosk, convenience store, and vending machine hub in Japan. I’ve been studying the label on the bottle to test my ability to read Japanese, but my focus is broken now that the passengers are stirring. Out the window, I see what the excitement is about: snow-capped Fuji-san, obscured only slightly by a few lingering clouds, in dramatic contrast with its backdrop of the bright blue autumn sky. 

Within minutes, Fuji-san fades from view. The passengers return to their naps, phones, and magazines as the shinkansen zooms on through the last stretch before Tokyo. I take another sip of my tea, golden to the eye and slightly bitter to the tongue.

For me, this taste is synonymous with journey. If judged by quality or flavor, this bottled green tea is far from the best tea I’ve ever had. But it carries another unique kind of value. Wherever I’m headed — Osaka, Sendai, Hamamatsu, Wakayama — I can always count on this tea as my shinkansen companion. I know I will find it anywhere, I know I will enjoy it, and I know I will not be drinking it alone. I’ll spot the iconic bright green bottle on other passengers’ tray tables too. We won’t exchange a word, but we’ll share the experience of sipping that tea for just a fleeting moment as the rice paddies and mountains roll by.