‘Matcha tea and a peaceful acceptance’: 113-year-old Mount Pleasant woman dies at home

Shige Mineshiba, a Canadian supercentenarian who lived to 113 years and 233 days and was unofficially the oldest living Canadian, has died in her Mount Pleasant home.

And the secret to her long life was a daily organic matcha tea “with not hot water,” said her only child, Kyoko Mineshiba, 82, with whom she shared a condo and a daily routine that involved Kyoko driving to Chinatown to buy them fish congee and an egg McMuffin with hash browns they would split.

“I made sure we ate well,” she said. “All you have to do is drink matcha tea. If you drink tea, you won’t die.”

Good genes may also help, Shige had seven siblings and two sisters live past 100, one to 109, the other 104.

She never drank alcohol, never smoked, but always lived around a smoker, her husband Ichiro, who died in 1985 or 1986 at age 85, and then Kyoko, a smoker, although Kyoko is forced to puff outside because of the condo’s no-smoking rule.