Swami recommends I drink Kukicha Green tea, it is a diamond under beverages. I've seen reports of green tea from Japan being stopped due to high radiation levels. I've researched it carefully and it seems that if tea is grown in the Kagoshima area at the Southern tip of Japan,then no radiation has been detected at all there.

Does anyone else know about this issue? Do you have any suggestions for the best Kukicha tea to buy to ensure it is not grown in a region near Fukushima that may have radiation for years to come?

Also wanting to alert all users here to check the origin of where your green tea comes from. I don't see any threads on this but maybe I just didn't search right?

The tea sold through this website has been mentioned as being not affected. Praise God, because it is wonderful-- which reminds me that Mr. Itaru and I have a prelunch date.  

Is  Mr. Itaru tea, the low caffeine Kukicha or Bancha green tea recommended for the caffeine sensitive?  I get affected by the caffeine in regular green tea. Also I looked on the website and don't see what part of Japan Mr. Itaru is grown?

Itaru tea is definitely not Kukicha tea.

Itaru tea is likely Bancha (Tea harvested in the Fall), since it is Genmai Cha(tea with rice) and  Genmai Cha is typically made with green leaves gathered late in the fall.

Mikeo indicate in an earlier post "approx. 35mg caffeine in a 10 oz cup Itaru's"

I still have some older Bancha from Japan but it seems to have been collected in ??? before  the problems rose last year I guess... and then some beautiful organic Sencha but from Austria... I didn't knew it was grown also overthere ....

The green tea I buy at Fairway is grown in China. I emailed them to ask. Not that I'm crazy about food products from China, but in this case, I think I'm better off drinking "enough green tea" than I am buying "the best of the best" and not being able to afford to drink it daily.

Well after researching online, I found the following sites selling Kukicha tea that is grown in Kagoshima, Japan. Kagoshima is at the southern most tip of Japan and is thousands of miles from where the nuclear incident happened in Japan, about the same distance from New York to Denver.

So no matter what scare stories you read about radiation in Japan, I think Kukicha tea grown in Kagoshima from these suppliers should be safe:

http://www.arborteas.com/organic-kukicha-green-tea.html

http://www.rishi-tea.com/store/kukicha-organic-japanese-green-tea.html

http://www.charaku-tea.com/tea12.html

http://www.lostdogcoffee.com/b.....-japanese-green-tea/

Again the reason I'm posting this is that I am specifically looking for Kukicha tea, which is a Japanese tea, that is very low in caffeine, very alkalizing, and is traditionally part of the Macrobiotic Diet with great healing properties.

It was recommended by Swami, but I had concerns due to shipments of green tea from Japan that have been stopped by certain countries due to high levels of radiation. I think the above is a solution for any other GT4 Explorers with similar concerns.

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Dr D
Itaru is on the other side of the trade winds. You'd be worse off drinking tea from California.

so, no worries!!

I agree about choosing tea from plantations that are South and Southwest of the nuclear site.  I don't have links, but at one point I did days of research on the matter and found that the teas grown off the tradewinds route did not test for any radiation.