With cafes starting to reopen, my friends have been trying to get me out for a coffee. I have to admit, though, I'm more of a green tea kind of person.
Due to decades of お茶離れ (ocha-banare, a departure from tea) thanks to the popularity of coffee, I'm worried that us お茶好き (ocha-zuki, tea lovers) are becoming a minority.
Still, no matter the numbers, お茶 (ocha, tea) has seeped into the broader Japanese culture. So much so that we call it 日本茶 (Nihoncha, Japanese tea). For example, I reckon that most people know that now is the time for 新茶 (shincha, tea leaves from this year's earliest harvest), a seasonal delicacy that appears in tea stores between May and July.