Have you seen how matcha is milled? At Ocnha-no-sato
tea museum, you can try milling *tencha
into matcha. They give you a small
pouch of tencha. (Tencha
is steamed and dried tealeaves, which is the ingredient of matcha.)
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| You put tencha into a hole on the top of the stone mill. |
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Hold the handle and turn the mill slowly (about 1 turn in 1 second). It is a little heavy, but turns smoothly with a comfortable sound. You should not turn it too fast for good quality tea.
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In a short while, you will find that green fine powders spill from the rims.
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| After several minutes of milling, you have a pile of matcha on the tray. Then, the turning sound slightly changes, and you won’t find any more tea coming out of the slit. |
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| You can take your own milled tea home. |
Matcha particle are about 1-20μ(micrometer). The particles
of fine quality matcha range 1-5μ. Too high friction heat of
milling can deteriorate the hue and flavor. Stone is still the best material for the mill even
in the modern time. Auto-mills at tea
factories also use stones. Slowly turning
the mill is nothing exciting, but it is a great experience to try actual matcha making^^
Ochano-no-sato tea museum (Japanese): http://www.ochanosato.com/
Posts
Hi,
ReplyDeleteperfect that you have such possibilities.
Whats the taste of fresh milled matcha?
Can you compare with matcha in stores?
Thx.
The self milled tea was terrible（;￣O￣） It was so rough and bitter. I tasted the grains of tea. The cause could be the quality of ingredient, the mill or the way of milling. I assume that the mill is not good. I have seen someone’s blog saying that hand-milled tea he/she tried was excellent. So, I don’t think hand-milled tea is always bad.
DeleteIs most matcha milled by hand or are machines common now?
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Kate
http://sagacitea.blogspot.com
The most matcha you find at shops are machine milled.
DeleteIs it give differ test with different speed?
ReplyDeleteI have never tried it myself, but yes, it is said that milling speed affects the taste of tea.
DeleteThe European study showed that those who drank the tea lost more than those who dieted without the tea and they came to the conclusion that the antioxidants in the tea caused an increase in fat oxidation.
ReplyDeleteI see.
DeleteGood looking stone milling tool. Where can i get one and how for how much money each unit.
ReplyDeleteThank you
Rio
I’m sorry that I don’t know any shop that sells stone mill to overseas. You should look for the stone mill that is meant for matcha. It should be finer than the ones for wheat. The particles of matcha are 1 – 20 micron. Good matcha has around 1 -5 micron particles. The unit that I found on the internet is about 200,000yen. It is quite expensive, isn’t it?
Delete