The manner of guest; drinking matcha

Good morning everyone! It’s cool this morning. The fall came already here.

I have talked about the manners of guest; brief steps of having matcha. They were more like manners used in a tea ceremony. But when you have match at a café or friends house, you don’t have to know them. You want to know more specific manners. So, today let’s take a closer look at the step 5 in the brief steps of having matcha.

1. Take the tea bowl with your right hand.












2. Place the tea bowl on your left palm and steady it with your right hand.












3. Raise the tea bowl little with your head down to express thanks












4. Turn the tea bowl clockwise twice
with your right hand in order to avoid its front.
Turn about 90 degrees, and the front of the tea bowl should be on the left
when you drink matcha.









5. Drink matcha to the last sip












6. Wipe the place where you drank from
with your right thumb and index finger.
Wipe your finger on your kaishi (paper)










7. Turn the tea bowl back so that the front faces to you.












8. Place the tea bowl with your right hand.












Turning a tea bowl could be interesting manner to people from other countries. If you can drink matcha with right manner, I’m sure you will impress people in Japan.

Have a nice day!

Flower of the day, sunflower Aug 2

Hi, everyone. The flower at Aug 2 lesson was small sunflower. It was pretty, but it’s not Japanese style to me. I wonder if sunflower was also enjoyed as tea flower in old days. Have a good day!

Matcha dessert for the summer at Tokoname

Good morning everyone!

Look at the size of a bowl of the shaved ice with matcha (kind of green tea) syrup. It was huge. I think there are fine shaved ice and bad shaved ice, and this one was fine shaved ice I liked. And more, it had condensed milk on top of it. Condensed milk is my favorite topping for shaved ice. I pretty much satisfied with it!

We also had a cup of iced matcha late. It was a unique late. Can you see green thing in a cup on the left? It is ice made of matcha. You make a late by pouring milk into the matcha ice cup. It was pretty nice.

We enjoyed the ice and late at a fancy café when we ware strolling around the historic district of Tokoname. In the district, there are many pottery studios, galleries, restaurants, cafes, and general stores. Most of them are renovated old ceramic factories, so they have some kind of nostalgia. It was very interesting place to strolling around.

Have a nice day!

Teapot artist at Tokname

I am looking for a white hohin (small teapot for gyokuro) for my store. I visited to a teapot artist at Tokomame this weekend, who is one of certified traditional craftsmen of Tokoname ware. He produces red, black, gray, and white teapots. I believe not many artists make white teapot at Tokoname. He showed me how to make a teapot. It was amazing. The clay transformed intriguingly like a living creature. I asked him a sample hohin with my original design. I’m really looking forward to it.

Take care!

Difference between hard and gentle pouring II

How are you everyone? The other day I did a little experiment for how the way of pouring effects to the taste of tea. It ended in complete failure. So, today I tried it again in another condition.

Condition
1g of sencha
80ml 75 degree C water
1 minutes brewing



Hard pouring: Pour swiftly from height
Gentle pouring: slowly tilting the kettle and teapot, and pour quietly
I did them both time when pouring hot water into the teapot and brewed tea from the teapot to a tea cup.

Tea gets bitter with hard pouring, and milder with gentle pouring.
The tea on the left in the picture is hard pouring tea, and the color is little darker than gentle pouring tea on the right. The hard pouring tea got little stronger with bitterness. At the gentle pouring tea, I could taste sweetness in less bitterness. I don’t say which is better, and it dispends on people’s preference. It was a slight difference. I think temperature of hot water, brewing time, and kind of tealeaves much effect to the taste. It will be nice if you can make really good use of this pouring method according kinds of tea and people’s preference.


Sorry for my bad English. Did you understand what I was trying to say?
Have a grate day!

New utensil stand and nightmare

Good morning everyone! I had another lesson last night. I started practicing a new temae with kuwakojoku, a kind of utensil stand. Kuwakojoku stand is usually used in the summer. Most of steps are the same as marujoku stand steps. The difference is what you display when you leave the tea room. With kuwakojoku, you leave natsume, ladle, fresh-water container, lid rest, and waste-water receptacle on the stand. This display is called sokazari (picture on the right).

As learning the tea, I often wonder reasons for the steps, movements or manners in temae. Here comes another nightmare with kuwakojoku temae. When you pick up the tea bowl, you need to use your right hand sometimes and left hand some other times. It’s confusing which hand I should use. There should be decent reasons for them, but now I’m busy just remembering the steps. I hope the time when I realize the reasons will come.

Take care!

Bottles of green tea

Hi, everyone! There are many brands of tea in bottles in Japan. I sometimes don’t know which one I want. I’ve tended to choose strong flavor sencha, but this summer I realized that I rather like regular sencha. The strong flavor sencha was around these couple of years. I may have been swayed by the trend. Or I just want strong sencha in the winter and refreshing regular sencha for the summer. What I chose this time was “Oh-i, Ocha” which is regular sencha and a standard brand tea for years. Wow, how nice the well-balance of bitterness and sweetness is! That’s the standard! I love the refreshing regular sencha for the summer! I'm seeing regular sencha in a new light.

Have a nice day!

Flower of the day, shukaido & wakanakago Aug26

Hi, everyone! This flower is hardy begonia, called shukaido in Japanese, and the vase is wakanakago. I think I found out a little tip of flower arrangement for tea. In this arrangement, can you tell two different greens are used? Shukaido is the one on the bottom with blooms. I’m not sure if I’m correct, but the tip I found is…

Small foliage with bloom(s) + Tall foliage with only green

I think our muster used this combination a couple of times. This isn’t a complicated arrangement, so I can try it home myself. I think this is so simple, that you just need to be careful about the balance of total figure. Anyway I like this combination which the only blooms attract people’s attention and the tall green adds something more to the arrangement.

Have a good day!

Front of tea whisk

How is it going everyone? I could have nice tea last night, twice. Hiro doesn’t stillremember the hirademae steps. She says that she understands the steps in the lesson, but she forgets them in a week. So this week, she asked for having hirademae practice twice in a lesson. That’s why I played a guest twice, and had sweets and tea twice. My legs hurt, thought.

Do you know there is a front for a teawhisk? There is black thread belt on a tea whisk, and the side has its knot is the front of the tea whisk. So anytime when you place a tea whisk, put it toward to you on the front. The excess thread from the knot should always be laid to the handle side. It’s often wild after washing, isn’t it?

Have a nice day!

Flower of the day, uzukumaru vase, Aug 19

Hello, everyone. These days it’s nice and cool here. It is like in the fall. I’m little happy about it. It will be easier to take a lesson in the tea room. Usually, it’s little hot in the tea room. I guess a brazier may raise the room temperature a bit. I’m having another lesson tonight. I’m looking forward to have a nice tea in a cool evening!!

This is a flower from last week lesson. The bloom is natsuzuisen, Lycoris squamigera, and the green is Quince. The vase is called uzukumaru. It means to crouch. Our master says that it’s because it looks like a squatting down person.

Have a good day!

Difference between hard and gentle pouring

Hi, everyone, how are you today?

I read an article about how the way of pouring tea effects to the taste. The article says that the tea will be milder in taste when you gently pour hot water into the teapot and brewed tea into a tea cup. And you will have stronger and bitterer tea with hard pouring. How interesting! Don’t you think? I know may books say “pour tea gentry”, but I have never been so serious about it. Now I have to try it myself.

Condition
1g of sencha
80ml 100 degree C water
2 minutes brewing
I tried two way of pouring, hard and gentle with condition above.

Hard pouring: pour swiftly from height

Gently pouring: slowly tilting the kettle and teapot, and pour quietly



I got disappointed result. I could not find evident differences.
I was expecting the hard pouring tea would get darker in color. But actually, I couldn’t find any big differences, or the gentle pouring tea was even little darker (on the right in the picture). The taste of the first sip for hard pouring tea was that bitterness came first and I could taste sweetness afterward. The gentle pouring tea was smoother, but I had bitterness in aftertaste. Then I tried many sipping to find out more differences, but I could not find any but bitterness.

I made two big mistakes to fail this experimentation.
First, I could not give fair comparison. I brewed the hard pouring tea first and then gentle pouring, so the hard pouring tea got little colder when I tasted. The temperate of tea gave a huge effect to the taste. And second, I made the both tea bitter. I used hot boiling water and brewed for two minutes to bring out the taste and aroma well. But, it worked negatively even I used few tealeaves. I’m so disappointed. I need to try this again under another condition.

Take care!

Putting match from a natsume to a tea bowl

How are you doing everyone?

Do you casually drink matcha at home? You might not need to know the proper way to scoop matcha, but if you know it, you could impress your friends!


Pick up the teascoop with right hand.
Hold natsume with left hand.
Open the lid with the hand holding the teascoop.











Place the lid next to the tea bowl on the right













Scoop matcha and put into the tea bowl.
Do it twice for one and half scoops
This is how much one scoop looks like.











Flick off the excess matcha remained on the teascoop by gently hitting the tea bowl edge twice












Put the lid back by the right hand with holding the teascoop
Put down the natsume and place the teascoop on top of it






Did you acquire these movements? Now you are a master of ceremonial tea!!