Looking Back on 2025.

Returning, Once More, to the Word "Afterglow"

Only a little of 2025 now remains.

Looking back on the year, I would like to set down here

some of what I have been thinking through my work with Imamura Tea Plantation.

Through film, photography, words, and social media,

the name Imamura Tea Plantation has, little by little, come to be seen more often.

Seen through the lens of marketing and branding,

these past few years have been a time devoted, above all,

to simply becoming known.

What is it that makes Imamura Tea Plantation itself?

With what kind of atmosphere, at what kind of distance, should we speak?

Through trial and error, we have been searching for the right form.

And yet now, entering our fourth year,

there is a feeling that stays with me.

It is a question:

"Is this expression

fully carried by the tea itself?"

That question will not leave me.

⸻

I Don't Drink Much Tea

Allow me, here, a brief personal aside.

I am not someone who drinks a great deal of tea day to day.

If anything, my life has involved

rather more cola and energy drinks.

If something existed that could replace them all,

I would try it without hesitation.

It is someone in that position

who became involved with Imamura Tea Plantation,

and who keeps thinking about tea.

Looking back now,

I feel there are things I came to see

precisely because of that distance.

⸻

In 2023, I Had Already Met the Feeling of Afterglow

At the end of 2025,

while thinking about the word "afterglow,"

a memory from 2023 came back to me.

It was before I began working with Imamura Tea Plantation —

the day I visited Kirishima

and thought, "Let me try this tea."

Back in Tokyo after Kagoshima,

settled once more into daily life,

I brewed Imamura Tea Plantation's tea again.

What rose up first in that moment

was not an impression of taste,

but the faces of Hirotsugu Imamura, the estate's owner,

of Satomi Imamura, the okami of the house,

and of everyone in the Imamura family.

We had talked for perhaps two or three hours.

Even so,

a faint kindness and warmth,

and something like hardship and sorrow never put into words,

came back to me of their own accord.

These days,

they may be the people I see,

and share time with,

more than my own relatives.

Hours spent in the fields.

Conversations between tasks.

Silences beyond words.

Through that accumulation,

their character, and all they have carried,

came through to me, little by little.

And the air of that place,

its sounds, its landscape, its scent,

went on quietly,

after the tea was finished.

I realize now

that this was the "afterglow."

⸻

The Sense of Not Having Run Away

In that moment,

without any reason,

I thought, fiercely: I will make this work.

It wasn't that I had confidence.

Nor did I have a plan.

Only,

from deep in my chest,

as if breaking through some parched place,

something welled up.

Not joy,

not sorrow.

Not anger, either.

And yet

a boiling heat, and that alone,

was unmistakably there.

Looking back,

I had felt it before —

that seething deep in the chest —

many times over the years.

But most of those times,

my own heat ran ahead alone,

and somewhere along the way

I would feel, "Something's not right,"

and step back.

This time, though,

just short of that unease,

I held my ground.

On this,

I will stake everything.

That is what I decided.

If it doesn't work out,

then when that time comes,

I'll find a way again.

And this time, at least,

I believe I did not run.

⸻

Perhaps the Expression Ran a Little Too Far Ahead

As marketing goes,

awareness has grown.

An image true to Imamura Tea Plantation is coming across.

And yet —

is all of it

gathered back

into a single cup of tea?

Perhaps the outward expression —

the films, the words, the atmosphere —

has moved just a little too far ahead.

"It's delicious. And yet, something is different."

"Is this… tea?"

This past year, that feeling,

little by little,

grew clearer.

⸻

Why I Came Back to the Word "Afterglow"

Afterglow — yoin — is

like the resonance that remains

after a bell has been struck.

The sound has faded,

and yet in the air,

something still remains.

By extension:

the taste that lingers afterward.

The feeling beyond words.

Not the moment of drinking,

but what continues quietly within a person

after the cup is finished.

Perhaps that is what Imamura Tea Plantation

must truly face —

that is what I now believe.

⸻

I Am Not a Tea Farmer

Finally,

a word about where I stand.

I am not a tea farmer.

Nor do I intend to become one.

I am someone who has kept creating,

as a producer.

That is exactly why

I have thought not only about taste and craft,

but about air and time,

and about the feeling

that follows the last sip.

Not to keep it all

contained within the world of tea,

but because I wanted to make something that reaches

someone outside it.

⸻

Not to Win, but to Keep Going

Because something of Imamura Tea Plantation exists,

someone, somewhere,

can stand up one more time.

Even when they're close to defeat,

even when nothing is going well,

they can still think,

"Maybe I'll keep going" — and mean it.

Whether that something is tea,

or something else entirely —

honestly, I don't yet know.

Only this:

after the last sip,

something quietly remains.

Trusting that feeling,

I will keep creating.

⸻

Toward 2026

In 2026,

if something of Imamura Tea Plantation

remains within someone

as a small afterglow,

that will be enough.

⸻

To everyone

who has been part of Imamura Tea Plantation

this past year:

my heartfelt thanks.

The voices of those watching over us from afar —

all of it

has shaped what Imamura Tea Plantation is today.

In 2026 as well,

pausing along the way,

questioning as we go,

we will keep searching for the afterglow

that can remain only in this place.

We look forward

to walking alongside you,

again in the year to come.

⸻

Yoshihiro Shimazu