The beautiful scenery of Wazuka
Wazuka, known as Chagenkyo — the “Tea Utopia,” in the town's own English. Tea fields blanketing the mountainsides, a countryside lit by the morning and evening sun, a landscape that shifts with the seasons. Here's a look at its charm, in photos and in aerial footage shot by drone. Many of these photos were taken a short walk or drive from Wazuka no Sato. When you've finished shooting, come and take a break at wazukanoSATO Cafe.
Travel Music — Listening as You Walk the Tea Fields
Twenty-two pieces to help you refresh as you gaze over the tea fields or stroll through the town. Lay the world of the music over the Wazuka landscape and even a familiar road looks a little different. Please read the descriptions and the “scenes” as the Council’s own impressions.
🎧 We recommend earphones. If you listen while walking, keep the volume low enough to hear cars and farm work, and consider leaving one ear free. On a smartphone, playback stops when the screen turns off (a limitation of embedded YouTube players).
Audio is played with YouTube’s embedded player from videos published by the artists, their labels and YouTube’s official distribution channels (“- Topic”); nothing from YouTube loads until you press play. The source of each track is shown when you open its description. The embedded player is subject to the YouTube Terms of Service and the Google Privacy Policy. The descriptions are the Council’s impressions.
My playlist
Use “+ Add” on any track to collect songs here and play them in order. Drag the ≡ handle (or use ↑↓) to change the order. Saved on this device.
Tap a title to open the description, the scenes it suits and its source.
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Grand, with the swell of heading somewhere you belong. For a viewpoint where the tea fields run up to the ridgeline — and for watching the drone footage. The way it builds slowly from a quiet opening feels like the climb itself, and it is worth pacing your walk so that the music is at its fullest just as you reach the top. A first track for the journey: look down over the valley and breathe.
Good forThe Ishitera viewpoint; watching the aerial films; the start of a journey
SourceYouTube “Thomas Bergersen” (the artist’s official channel)
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The soft breath of the clarinet feels like spring air itself. A piece to play quietly in the brief season when the cherry avenue from Ishitera Bridge and the green of the overwintered tea fields can be seen together. Originally a piano prelude, here the wind instrument carries the melody one breath at a time, at the pace of petals drifting down on the breeze. Walk slowly, while the morning light is still low.
Good forA spring morning; the cherry trees and tea fields at Ishitera
SourceYouTube “PARMA Recordings” (the label’s official channel)
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A piano like a deep breath. By the cafe window, watching the steam and thinking back over the road you walked. It seems to say there is nothing you need to hurry to do. The same phrase returns again and again with small changes of expression, and your own breathing seems to slow to match it. For a rainy day, too, when the rows outside the window soften into mist.
Good forAfter a walk, over a cup of Wazuka tea at the cafe; a rainy-day rest
SourceYouTube “Warner Music Japan” (the label’s official channel)
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A light-footed song for walking into the wind. For a slow walk along the Sakura Seseragi Path or beside the Wazuka River, where it mixes well with the sound of wind crossing the rows. The acoustic sound and gentle vocals sit right at walking pace, and it is at its best in earphones, layered over the sound of the river. For spring and early summer, when the breeze feels good.
Good forThe Sakura Seseragi Path; a riverside stroll
SourceYouTube “SPACE SHOWER” (the label’s official channel)
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A skipping violin: music for setting out on a fine day. Leaving Wazuka no Sato for Shirasu Bridge and the riverside path, your step seems to lighten of its own accord. The bright tone and bouncing rhythm belong to the light of a clear late morning, and in flower season even the colours along the roadside seem to sharpen. For the first few minutes of a walk.
Good forThe start of a walk on a clear day, from Wazuka no Sato down to the river
SourceYouTube “Iwao Furusawa - Topic” (YouTube’s official distribution channel, audio supplied by the label)
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On a waltz rhythm, the scenery seems to turn slowly. For the heights of Ikujigaoka Park, looking out over the town and letting your gaze sweep around. The sway of three-four time suits both the stride of a gentle downhill walk and the pace at which the evening light changes. There is a touch of wistfulness in the melody, so it also fits a last look back at the town before leaving.
Good forLooking out over the town from Ikujigaoka Park or the rise at Tenmangu
SourceYouTube “JoeHisaishiVEVO” (the label’s official channel)
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The lift of that moment when you reach the top of a slope and the view opens. Over rows that roll on like waves, the brightness of a town above the sea seems to shine through. This performance recreates the colours of an orchestra on a single Electone, and its light rhythm recalls the flutter of arriving in a town you do not yet know. For the first place in Wazuka where you look out over the fields.
Good forWhere a climb opens the view: Ikujigaoka Park, the Kamatsuka tea fields
SourceYouTube “Yamaha Japan” (the official channel of Yamaha, who perform it)
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Like wind slipping between the trees. Mountain-edge lanes, the narrow paths between tea fields, the groves of shrines and temples — its pace matches a walking stride. The melody wanders back and forth over a low, steady pulse, much as the scenery changes with every bend in a lane. For shaded paths, and for a quiet walk in light rain.
Good forLanes through the hamlets, shrine and temple groves; a day of light rain, too
SourceYouTube “Joe Hisaishi - Topic” (YouTube’s official distribution channel, audio supplied by the label)
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A steady, quiet rhythm, like wind passing over the rows. It sits most naturally in the season of fresh green, walking between fields with no covers on. The music repeats one motion while the scenery slowly changes, which suits rows of green streaming past a car window as well as terraced fields seen on foot. A piece for the wind of early summer.
Good forFrom fresh green to early summer, walking the lanes through the tea fields
SourceYouTube “JoeHisaishiVEVO” (the label’s official channel)
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A piano that quietly brings summer back. Wet rows after an evening shower, the cicadas fading — close to the feeling of turning for one last look on the way home. The gentle theme swells, then settles again, much as the day's events fill your chest and slowly calm. With the dusk-lit tea fields at your back.
Good forA summer evening after rain; looking back at the fields on the way home
SourceYouTube “Joe Hisaishi Official” (the artist’s official channel)
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A bounce in the step, like the first morning of the summer holidays. It suits the season when the blue sky and the deep green of the fields face each other most strongly, and you slip between the uncovered rows by bicycle or on the Guchamo tour. The springing pizzicato and the simple tune are the very mood of a morning spent unfolding a map and deciding where to go. On hot days, go early.
Good forA summer morning, before setting off by bicycle or on the tea-field tour
SourceYouTube “JoeHisaishiVEVO” (the label’s official channel)
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The piece that has come to stand for daybreak itself. A flute melody rises slowly and the light spreads to fill the valley — much as the morning mist lifts and the rows of tea bushes emerge as green stripes. The same melody returns on one instrument after another, each time a little higher and brighter, at exactly the speed at which the colour of the mist changes as the sun climbs. For autumn and winter mornings with a sea of cloud.
Good forA sea of mist at dawn; waiting for sunrise at a viewpoint; the quiet before Wazuka no Sato opens
SourceYouTube “Berliner Philharmoniker - Topic” (YouTube’s official distribution channel, audio supplied by the label)
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One long melody stretches on without a break. An unhurried morning, a steaming cup, the tea rows outside the window half in view — music for exactly that kind of hour. The bass walks slowly beneath a melody that sings in long breaths, like the rows of tea bushes running one by one into the distance. For the quiet of the cafe just after opening.
Good forA rainy day at the cafe; the first cup of Wazuka tea of the morning
SourceYouTube “Berliner Philharmoniker - Topic” (YouTube’s official distribution channel, audio supplied by the label)
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Clear voices that seem to rise straight into the sky. Cold morning air, the sun breaking above a sea of cloud, dew on the new shoots — it suits the purest moments of a Wazuka morning. As the voices gather and spread, it is like light reaching across the valley to the far hills, and you want to stop and look up. For early mornings in new-tea season.
Good forAn early-morning viewpoint; spring, when the new shoots have filled the fields
SourceYouTube “Libera Official” (the artist’s official channel)
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Time seems to slow down. A sea of mist, frost on the rows, a morning dusting of snow — a companion for winter in Wazuka, when the turning of the seasons is best watched without hurry. The layered voices seem to come from far away, as if the depth of the white, hazy valley had been turned into sound. With a warm drink in hand, looking out of the window.
Good forA frosty winter morning; a valley softened by rain or mist, seen from the cafe window
SourceYouTube “enyatv” (the artist’s official channel)
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The hymn everyone knows, in a clear voice. It fits the quiet that comes when you pause before the Miroku stone Buddha or in the grounds of Tenmangu Shrine or Shobo-ji. Sung with little ornament, it does not intrude on anyone paying their respects, and seems to settle in with your own breathing. For temple grounds after rain.
Good forQuiet moments at the Miroku Buddha, Wazuka Tenmangu, Shobo-ji and other shrines and temples
SourceYouTube “Hayley Westenra - Topic” (YouTube’s official distribution channel, audio supplied by the label)
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Respect for craft, carried on a quiet heat. The backs of growers tending the rows, the shading covers going on, the stages of tea-making — it reminds you that the Wazuka landscape is a working place. The piano gathers strength little by little through its repetitions, like the years of the same daily work that built this scenery. The fields are private land: listen from the road.
Good forIn picking and shading season, watching working fields from the road
SourceYouTube “松谷 卓 [MATSUTANI, Suguru]” (the artist’s official channel)
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A stately melody echoing between mountains. The ranges that ring the valley and the strength of the terraced fields — as if the landform of Wazuka itself were sounding. The great orchestral swells suit a mountain drive where a new valley appears over every ridge; the quiet passages suit the hour when evening light stretches the shadows of the hills.
Good forA viewpoint over the valley; driving the mountain roads
SourceYouTube “Akira Senju - Topic” (YouTube’s official distribution channel, audio supplied by the label)
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A violin that seems to retrace the memory of a journey. It suits a drive along the lanes between the fields, the view changing with every bend. The long-breathed melody climbs little by little, and when it meets the moment a tea field opens beyond a curve, the scenery seems to have timed itself to the music. For late afternoon, when the western sun lights the rows.
Good forDriving the tea-field roads; taking the prefectural road slowly
SourceYouTube “HATSCHANNEL” (the artist’s official channel)
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A quiet piano that seems to set down, one by one, the feelings you could not put into words. It is a short piece of about two minutes, yet it moves gently from hesitation to acceptance, and when it ends your mind feels a little more in order. For the hour when the evening light stretches the shadows of the rows, looking back along the road you walked. Somewhere with a view over the tea fields, as you slowly close the day.
Good forDusk, Heading home, Tea-field views
SourceYouTube “Yoshihisa Hirano - Topic” (YouTube’s official distribution channel, audio supplied by the label)
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The colour of sunset, and of nostalgia. For the hour when the tea fields turn orange, the sunset seen from Iwai Bridge, and lights coming on under the village roofs. The broad orchestral passage seems made for the few minutes when the whole western sky above the valley is stained with colour, and the sky settles at the same pace as the music.
Good forTea fields at dusk; the sunset from Iwai Bridge
SourceYouTube “Naoki Sato - Topic” (YouTube’s official distribution channel, audio supplied by the label)
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A gentle song for folding the day away. With the dusk-lit fields at your back, waiting for the bus at the Wazuka Yamanoie stop. A song that makes you think you will come again. Its words are soft, yet it leaves you standing a little straighter — a fitting last track for the journey. For the few minutes before the bus comes.
Good forWaiting for the bus home; the last moments of the day
SourceYouTube “Fujii Kaze” (the artist’s official channel)
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