Snacks and sweets for green tea

Do you know what kinds of food go with green tea?  What do you usually enjoy with Japanese tea?

It is generally said that sweet or salty non-fat foods go with Japanese tea.  I feel the same from my experience.  So, it is pretty make sense that Japanese cakes and rice cracker are popular for tea time.  But, it is difficult to have them overseas and I always wonder what I can recommend for those people.  

Konnichiwa, it’s Koheiヽ(^。^)ノ  I had an excellent opportunity to solve my wonder.   I joined a gathering to look for great snacks and sweets for green tea.  What we looked for is not just great, but a perfect mariage!  The six attendees were related to food or tea in their business.  We tasted two kinds of sencha with following foods.  They are not only Japanese food but also foods that you can find overseas (red font). 

- Tea -

Mellow sencha with umami from Kyoto

Bitter refreshing sencha from Gifu

- Sweet -

Sweet bean paste

Japanese pancake with sweet bean (dorayaki)

White sugar

Brown sugar

Cake

Cookie

Chocolate

Dried raisin

- Salty -

Rice cracker (soy flavor)

Japanese pickles

Dried kelp (konbu seaweed)

Peanut

Potato chips

- Sour -

Umeboshi (pickled plums)

Mandarin orange

- Others -

Apple

Persimmon

Smoked cheese

Gouda cheese

Blue cheese

Dried tomato and olive

What do you think?  Is there any food that you are curious about?  Well, the result is very interesting.  Some of the attendees have tried the same kind of test with coffee. They say the result with coffee was pretty much similar for all attendees.  But, at this test with green tea, the results were different in some part.  Example, some people don’t like orange but some liked, and same for blue cheese.  We think that personal taste affects pretty much to the result.  

Even though we had differences, we found some in common.  The aforementioned theory was quite correct; we liked the sweet or salty foods (sweet bean, brown sugar, rice cracker and dried seaweed) but didn’t like fat contenting foods.  So, we thought that many foods that you can find overseas, such as cake, cookie, chocolate, dried raisin, peanut or potato chips are not that good for green tea, unfortunately. 

So, now what?  Some of you might think “Only Japanese food go with Japanese tea??”  Don’t worry!  We found another wonderful theory!!  It’s amazing.  I’ll introduce it on the next post.  Jah!