Tasting bottles of Japanese green tea

How are you doing everyone? As I mentioned yesterday, I tried four bottles of major Japanese brand tea. They were different in taste, and all good. I don’t say one is good and another one is bad, it depends on your preference and occasions.


From the left
1. “O-i, Ocha” from Itoen
Color: Light yellowish orange
Taste: Good bitterness, a sense of roasted flavor
2. “Ayataka” from Coca-cola Japan
Color: Darkest in these four, little murky
Taste: Strongest, Full body, bitterness in the after taste
3. “Namacha” from Kirin
Color: Light yellow
Taste: Most mild in these four, mellow and sweet
4. “Iemon” from Santory.
Color: Green -yellow
Taste: Good bitterness, a sense of roasted flavor

I personally liked Namacha best. My wife Hiro liked O-i,Ocha best. O-i,Ocha and Iemon were similar. They both have pronounced flavor, but you can taste the flavor light after you sipped O-i,Ocha, and Iemon has the flavor in aftertaste. Now, I know the difference of these four, so I can choose a right bland at a right occasion.

Namacha: When you want to enjoy tea itself, the sweetness will be nice.
O-i,Ocha or Iemon: At meal, and when you are thirsty, the fine bitterness will refresh your mouth.
Ayataka: For teatime with confectionery, the rich flavor will suit with sweet.

This is my personal opinion. People will have different tastes in these green teas. You should try them yourself! Have a nice day!

Bottles of Japanese-brand green tea

Hello, everyone. It’s in December, now! A tea lover from Singapore told me that they can buy a bottle of Japanese-brand green tea there. It is “O-i, Ocha” from Itoen. It is also popular in Japan. When I found a bottle of sweated green tea in the US about fifteen years ago, it was a bit of shock. But times are changing. As you can find Japanese-brand tea at Singapore, I believe that now more overseas people can enjoy pure Japanese teas.

We of course have many brands for bottles of green tea. When I buy a bottle of tea, I usually choose one what my mood tells me at the moment. I’ve never seriously compared them. So, I thought this is a good time to see what we have in our market now. I got four bottles of major-brand tea, which you can find at any places here. They are standard sencha from major company, including “O-i, Ocha” from Itoen. These 500ml bottle beverages are usually sold at 150yen/each in Japan. I got them at 98yen/each on sale at a grocery store. Is it expensive or reasonable comparing to the price in your country? I’ll taste them and report it tomorrow. Have a nice day!

From the left
1. “O-i, Ocha” from Itoen
2. “Ayataka” from Coca-cola Japan
3. “Namacha” from Kirin
4. “Iemon” from Santory.

I’ll be a qualified Japanese tea adviser!

How are you doing, everyone? I have been studying about Japanese tea to be a Japanese tea adviser, who has overall and essential knowledge of Japanese tea. It is all about tea, history, industry, cultivation and production, science and health, tasting, preparing technique, and so on. Japanese tea advisers can give customers advices at a tea store, or can be an assistant at a tea workshop or a guide at a tea event. I took the exam in the beginning of this month. And yesterday, I receive a notice of passing the exam. Yeah! I’ll officially be qualified as a Japanese tea adviser in coming April. I’m so happy about it. Have a great weekend!

Covering utensils with cloth

Hello, everyone! We had another lesson last night. I have been practicing bon-demae these months. When you bring in the utensils into the tea room with bon-demae, you place a tea bowl set and tea container on bon, a tray, and cover the items with silk cloth, called “fukusa”. I don’t know the reason why you cover with cloth, but I guess covering with cloth might mean that the items are all cleaned and prepared? Or avoiding from dust? There should be some decent reason for it. Have a nice day.

Flower of the day, 6 and 11 Nov

Hi, everyone! Here are flowers from this month lessons.

Hototgis was the flower on 6 Nov.


We had tsubaki on 11.

Our master sometimes gives us the tea flowers after the lessons. We took the tsubaki home and displayed it at our hallway. Isn’t it nice? Have a good day!!

Sweets of the day, Nov 6,11, and 18

Hi, everyone! I haven’t introduced the sweets from this month lessons. Here they are. The first one is from Nov 6 lesson. It was white been paste covered with regular been paste and sweet chest nuts are top of it.
The next one is yokan, sweetened and jellied bean paste. It was salt flavor yokan. Salt flavor sweets might sound weird, but surprisingly it was good. The salty flavor accentuates the sweetness.
I don’t know the name for the last one. It looked like kuri-kinton but it wasn’t. It was white been paste and bits of chestnuts and little too sweet for me. I liked first one most in these three. Have a nice day!

Nakatsugi, container for matcha

How are you everyone? Almost every evening, we go 30 minute walking for exercise. There is a national park called Iwayado in our town. It is a little far and off from our usual walking course, but the park also has illuminations for autumn leaves in this period. Yesterday, we were warmly clothed and went to the park for a walk to see autumn leaves again. It was as nice as Sogi park. The illuminated trees reflected on liver surface was so beautiful.

At this week lesson, we used a different type of container for matcha, called nakatsugi. It is a cylindrical shape container, which is refined I think. I could scoop plenty of matcha easily. It may be because nakatsugi has a flat bottom and holds more matcha than ordinary natume.
Hope you have a good weekend.

Sobayu at a soba restaurant

Hello, everyone! I had zaru-soba (my favorite Japanese buckwheat noodle) for a lunch on the trip to Gifu. It was handmade noodles, and I liked it. Some soba restaurants serves sobayu with zaru-soba. Sobayu is hot water that the noodles were boiled in, and is murky white. After you eat soba, you enjoy sobayu. You add sobayu into soy based sauce for soba, and enjoy like soup or tea. The rate of sobayu and sauce make a difference on the taste. I think people have their own recipe. I like a lot of sobayu with a little sauce, so that you can enjoy soba flavor of yobayu. By the way, the tea served at the restaurant was sencha with tall thick younomi cup. Have a nice day!

Mushroom tea

Hi, everyone! Last night, we went to Sogi Park for night viewing of illuminated trees, which is 25 minute drive from our place. It was very cold but it was worth to visit. The orange and red maple leaves were illuminated by hundreds of lights in the dark park. It was so beautiful and fantastic!! We want to come to visit next year again.

Anyway, I’ll talk about tea. There was a tea set in a hotel room we stayed this weekend. There were a hot-water pot, teapot, cups, saucers and tea bags. And there were some sweets on the table. Green packages in the picture are tea bags of sencha, Shirakawa-cha. I didn’t try them, this time. I had orange package tea, which is mushroom tea. You put the powdered tea into a cup and just pour hot water into it. I think the taste is not like a tea, more like a soup without ingredients. It doesn’t’ have any bitterness as ordinary green tea; just has supper rich umami of mushroom. Yom might not able to imagine how the flavor is like. It is difficult to explain, but if you have tried Japanese soup, called osumashi, I can say that the mushroom tea is similar to osumashi. Anyway I like really it. Have a nice day!

Shirakawa-cha at a hotel restaurant

How is it going everyone? We went to a trip to Gero hot spring resort in Gifu prefecture this weekend. The lunch at a hotel we stayed was pretty good. You could have buffet-style beverages there. I found green tea that you can prepare it yourself with a teapot and beautiful deep green sencha leaves, not a tea bag. The tea was Shirakawa-cha, which is popular sencha bland from this region. We used tea cups to lower boiling water temperature. The brewed tea color was nice light green, and had comfortable bitterness and excellent green tea flavor. This was a kind of sencha I like. Talk to you soon!

Kettle rings and kettle rest

Hi, everyone! I introduced how to rinse a large kettle the other day. When you handle the kettle, you use some accessories. They are kettle rings and a kettle rest. You use two rings to carry the kettle by putting them through lugs on the kettle. You use a wooden frame as a kettle rest at preparation room. Have a nice weekend!

Susuricha

Good morning everyone! Yesterday, I talked about susuricha, and tried it again. This time I used 3g of fine sencha with 15ml of cold water, and brewed it one minute. You might think one minute is too short for cold water brewing, but it isn’t. The plenty tealeaves to the little water brought out amazing flavor. The brewed tea was just few drops, but so delicious. It was very mellow and no bitterness, and totally different from the sencha I usually have. I really like it. I’ll explore more of susuricha. Have a nice day.