Discourse of quality and place in geographical indications: Applying convention theory to Japanese tea

ABSTRACT

Though Japanese tea has been traditionally differentiated by, for example, production processes, varieties, and environmental and cultural factors of production areas, positive elements related to place or environment are increasingly highlighted to add value to tea practices. Here, agricultural practice peculiar to the area can provide foods more in a sustainable way. The practice can be registered through institutional measures. Regions of tea production are applying multiple instruments, such as geographical indications (GIs), trademarks, organic standards, and regional heritage registrations. Thus, this study examined the potential effects of these quality elements on the producers and production regions and discuss the quality is multi-layered over discourse and practice. For the analysis, this study employed convention theory originating from French economic sociology to understand producers and related actors deciding product quality. This study investigated four tea types, all observable cases of Japanese tea GIs. The effective registration of GI depends on diverse conventional elements such as inclusion and exclusion, duration of the registration process, and the agreeable product standards.

The registration of GI tea can be combined with other quality or environment-related registration, such as organic standards, environmentally friendly or tradition-related labeling, such as that in Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS).

KEYWORDS:

• Japanese tea
• green tea
• convention theory
• geographical indication (GI)
• globally important agricultural systems (GIAHS)

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Applying for a GIAHS registration requires that a site is in an FAO member country.^[91] Stakeholders, including government agencies, can prepare the proposal. A government agency, or other stakeholders, must submit a proposal to the Secretariat for GIAHS in FAO. If no relevant government agency is present, the GIAHS National Committee can submit it. The proposal must include descriptions of particular characteristics in agriculture and the environment and the underpinning local natural and cultural landscape. The proposal includes an action plan to overcome the difficulties in sustaining the proposed system and policies and other measures.

The GIAHS Secretariat accepts the proposal from FAO member countries or relevant stakeholders.^[91] The Secretariat checks the proposal and sends it to the Scientific Advisory Group. This group reviews the proposal, conducts a field visit, and decides whether to accept the proposal. After the acceptance, countries with GIAHS sites are required to inform the GIAHS Secretariat of the implementation of the action plan, which aims to attain dynamic conservation.

Additional information

Funding

The study for this article was funded by the KakenhiGrant Numbers JP16KK0053, JP17K02105, JP20K12398, and JP21K18456. Additionally, the study was supported by JST RISTEX Grant Number JPMJRX20B3, Japan.