Glass tea bowl

How are you doing everyone?




This week lesson we used a glass tea bowl. The tea bowl brought cool in the tea room. I really liked this tea bowl. I think it is quite gracious in the coolness from the clear glass texture and the airy silver sparkles. Glass tea bowls are usually used in the summer. It shows the Japanese preference for things in season, I think.

Have a nice weekend.

Manner of guests, brief steps having sweets

Good morning everyone! I took pictures for manner for having sweets at yesterday lesson. I think you will look smart if you can do this naturally as courtesy.


1. Bow when sweets are served


I think Hiro needs a little more practice for bowing. See our master's bow is much beautiful than Hiro's. You don't want to curl your back and neck when you bow; you bend your hip and tilt your upper body with strait back.







2. Make a bow to other guest(s) when the host starts purifying the tea whisk. It has meaning of “Excuse me for going before you “.











3. Make a bow to the host when the host finishes purifying the tea whisk.












4. Take one of the sweets with the chopsticks to your kaishi (packet of paper). Put the chopsticks back to the bowl and pass the bowl to the next guest











5. Eat the sweet using your sweet pick.













6. Put away your sweet pick and kaishi













Take care.

Tea at a steak house

Hi, everyone! I aimed my camera at the eastern sky.


The weather has been gloomy these days. It’s clouded now, and will be raining this afternoon. The rainy season is usually over in the middle of July. But this year, it’s not over yet. In Japan the rainy season usually starts and ends from Southwest. I think I heard the rainy season is over in Tokyo now. The rainy season left behind our region, Aichi.

Yesterday, we had a dinner at a steakhouse. There was a beverage fountain there, and you could enjoy coke, ginger ale and some other stuff. Iced oolong tea and sokenbicha (kind of green tea from Coca-Cola Japan) are also provided from the fountain. I forgot to take a picture of it, sorry. I haven’t seen any fountain provides green tea at oversea, so I thought it could be interesting to you. Hiro and I had iced oolong tea with steak. It could be funny to Americans to have oolong or green tea with steak, but it’s not so surprising at all in Japan.

We’re having another lesson tonight. Take care!

Sweets of the day, Jul. 22

Hi, everyone.

This is the sweet from Jul 22 lesson. I was a little disappointed with it. I didn’t think the design and the taste are sophisticated.


The other day, we had really good sweet that a friend of mine gave us. It was jelly in a block container. A mesh was mounted on the end face of the container and you push the jelly out from the other end. You stick it out into a bowl. The jelly became noodle shape and you could enjoy with syrup. It was pretty interesting. There was three different flavor for the syrup, brown sugar, matcha, or plum. We loved brown sugar. The mellow syrup and smooth jelly were very comfortable to my mouth, and it was excellent sweet. Thanks to the friend!



Have a nice day!

Flower of the day, mukuge Jul 22

This week flower was mukuge, H. syriacus.


We spent a lot of this weekend watching videos. We watched THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON, DREAMGIRLS, and MICHAEL JACKSON LIVE IN BUCHAREST. We liked DREAMGIRLS. This was the first time to watch a musical movie, and I wasn’t count on it. But the singing scenes are so powerful and emotional. I could fill the soul. The actors and actresses did excellent convincing performance.

Have a nice day!

I practiced a new temae with mrujoku.

Hi, everyone!

We have been practicing hirademae at lessons. This week lesson I practiced a new temae with tana, a utensil stand (shown in this picture). Please compare with the picture of Hiradema from my past blog. This type of tana is called marujoku. Most procedure is the same as hirademae. The big differences are placing a fresh-water container on the stand, and displaying the ladle and lid rest on the top of the stand when you leave the tea room. This marujoku stand can be used in either the summer or winter season.

I have done this temae before, but it was a long time ago. I didn’t remember some details, need more practice. Hiro is not ready for tana, so she is still keep practicing hirademae.

Have a good day!

PS. In this picture I used a bamboo lid rest, but I should have used a ceramic lid rest for marujoku temae.

Tea bowl for the summer

Good morning everyone! How are you today?

We used a flat tea bowl at yesterday’s lesson. This wide-topped and short silhouette tea bowl is often used in the summer. I think it is because it looks cooler, and also for real the tea gets cool easily with the large surface dimensions. The bowl on the left is the flat tea bowl we used yesterday. It looks thinner and smarter, doesn’t it? The other one is a tea bowl which is often appreciated in the winter. I think it’s more ponderous and rugged.




I really like the flat tea bowl we used. I loved the smart design; the roomy top, the streamlined bottom, and light thin body. The white and wide opening emphasized the green hue of matcha so well.

Have a good day!

Which taste better cold water or hot water brewing mugicha

How are you everyone?

There was a summer festival in my town on the last Saturday.



Yesterday, I had an endoscopic exploration. Have you tried endoscop? It was so unconformable experience. I lie down on my side on the bed with a mouthpiece stacked. I was passed through the viewing tube. Ick… I never want to do it again. Fortunately, there was any disease found in my stomach. I was relieved.

As I told you before we usually enjoy cold brewing mugicha. Today, I tried hot water brewing.

The tea on the left is cold water brewing mughica.
Just left a teabag in cold water for couple of hours.

The tea on the right is hot water brewing mugicha.
Put a teabag in boiling water and left it about five minutes and cooled it down.

The hot brewing tea is a slightly murkier. They have nice roasted aroma, but both made cold, so neither has rich aroma. The most important thing, their tastes; I could not find big differences in their tastes. Both have nice mugicha flavor. I could say the cold brewing tea is a little mellower and hot brewing tea is slightly earthy. It was a subtle difference, so I will preparer with easier cold water brewing from now on.

Have a nice day.

Tea at an eel restaurant

Hi, everyone.

Yesterday was a doyonoushi day in the summer. In Japan People eat unagi, freshwater eel on the day to develop their stamina and get through the hot summer. We went to a unagi restaurant nearby. The unagi dish we orderd was kabayaki syle, which is the most common style in our region. The unagi flesh is basted a sweet savory soy sauce and grilled. Its delectable aroma and crunchy texture outside and melting inside are irresistible. The tea served at the unagi restaurant was sencha. I was so busy eating unagi and don’t remember the teste of the tea, sorry. I believe it was just regular sencha.



Take care!

My favorite tea cup for cold mugicha

It is a typical day in the rainy season here. The picture is a view from my office.

I have introduced my big mug at the office before. I have another favorite cup using during work. It’s a double wall vacuum insulation cup. I like that it’s big enough and keeps my drink either hot or cold for a long time. Especially with cold beverage, you will be made to realize the potential of the cup. Ice cubes in cold drink will last more than four hours. Isn’t that amazing? And more, there is no sweat. I really like that. Even in this moment I’m drinking cold mugicha with this cup at my desk.

Have a good day!

Our mugicha system

Hello, everyone. We didn’t have the lesson this week. We have four lessons a month and there are five Wednesdays this July. So, we made this week off.

I talked about mugicha yesterday. There are mugicha teabags for hot-water brewing type and cold-water brewing type. Hot-water type, you brew it with boiling water like hojicha brewing. If you want to have it cold, you need to cool it down afterwards. Cold-water type, you just leave the teabag in cold water, but it will take time, usually hours.

The picture on the right is the mugicha teabag we use. Actually, you can use either hot or cold water with this product. We do cold brewing. It’s easier. We have two pitchers for mugicha. While we are drinking with one pitcher, we prepare next tea with another one. (Picture on the left) It is so easy. You just put water and the teabag into a pitcher and leave it in the fridge. That’s it. When you finish one pitcher, another one will be ready. It’s easier than purchasing big heavy mugicha bottles from glossary stores, and much reasonable. This is our major beverage for the summer. We drink about one pitcher a day or more on hot days.

Have a nice day!

Iced tea for the summer!

How are you doing? It is getting hot here. It been getting over thirty degrees C these days.

Do you know there is a popular tea for the summer in Japan? It is barley tea called mugicha. The brewed tea color is brown, and it has a nice roasted taste. I think the taste is more like to hojicha then sencha. I always have mugicha in the fridge in the summer. I have iced mugicha instead of hot sencha in this season. This is it for the summer!!!

Take care!