It’s a sunny, windy day here. Today, I want to talk about the gyokuro tea set that we had at a café, Sagano-yu in Kyoto. The tea set comes with tea leaves in teapot, hot water, an hourglass and a little dessert, and you blew the tea yourself. This type of teapot is called shiboridashi, which is a small teapot specialized for gyokuro. It doesn’t have a handle. So it's similar to houhin, but Shiboridashi does not have a mounted tea strainer. You pour the tea from the little aperture between the lid and body. The tea set was 800 yen. I think it is pretty expensive for one small shot of tea, but it's gyokuro. I waited for 3 minutes after poured hot water (about 40ml / 50 degrees C) into the teapot.
Hiro and I sheared the shot of gyokuro. It was nice, and we both loved it. The tealeaves after fist brewing looked like in the picture blow.
They provided another hot water for refill, second brewing. The flavor got weaker on the second brewing, but still had the distinctive umami of gyokuro. I tried the third brewing, but the nice umami was gone.
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This reminds me of one local teahouse in my hometown; they serve gyokuro and kabuse teas this way there (and the price is even higher, because they have to count in the transport prices from Japan to Europe). They also serve Sencha like this, but instead of Shiboridashi, the tea is served in small 100ml Kyusu.
ReplyDeleteI really like this kind of serving. Shiboridashi teapots are also very elegant and easy to use.
Michal
Hi, Michal-san
ReplyDeleteThank you for visiting my blog.
Right, it is good to brew tea yourself. You can enjoy the time for waiting the tea infuses (^-^) I could assume Japanese teas will be more expensive in Europe, but it’s still surprising to learn that it’s much expensive. Have a nice tea and a great day!!
Well, it isn't that much more expensive, just about 100 or 150 yen more, although some gyokuros can get even higher... but I'm still glad that we have Japanese teas of this high quality in Europe.
ReplyDeleteHave a great day, too!