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Graphic on green tea production and consumption in Japan.

Can global matcha craze save Japan's tea industry?

From matcha ice cream to cake and chocolate, producers of traditional Japanese green tea are capitalising on growing global interest in its flavour -- even as demand for the drink declines at home.At Shigehiko Suzuki's tea shop in central Japan, adorned with a traditional "noren" drape, the customers are flooding in but more to scoop up gelato or cake than to sip the bright-green tea.In 1998, Suzuki's company Marushichi Seicha started making powdered matcha green tea -- traditionally made using a bamboo whisk in a tiny room. The firm now exports 30 tonnes of green tea to the US, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
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Brazil's Bolsonaro open to foreign aid to fight Amazon fires

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro is willing to accept foreign aid for fighting fires devastating the Amazon rainforest, but only if the country controls the funds, his spokesman said Tuesday.The announcement suggests Bolsonaro has dropped an earlier demand that French President Emmanuel Macron withdraw "insults" made against him before he would accept a G7 offer to help put out the fires in the world's largest rainforest.

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