Matcha on New Year day

Hello, everyone! I usually have matcha with our family on New Year day’s tea time. It’s a kind of our family custom, which I started. So, we usually buy matcha and sweets for it on the end of year. There are some Japanese-style confection stores in my town. Our favorite store is Azumaken. They make very exquisite confectionery that is pleasing to the eye, which is why I love about them. Azumaken always has different selections in season. They especially have good selections around New Year day. These are the sweets from Azumaken.


We visited my grandpa at nursing home on New Year day. We brought matcha and tea set, and had matcha there (^-^) He doesn’t look happy in this picture, but actually he was very much happy and enjoyed matcha with us. We were so glad that we could have tea together this year again. Have a nice day!

Bad matcha-latte with fine matcha

Hi, everyone! I usually spend time with my family on the New Year day.
In Japan, people enjoy traditional New Years Osechi dishes, which are usually prepared in order to be preserved for at least three days so housewives don't have to cook during that period. Our relatives used to gather at my parents home, and had osechi on New Year days. So, my mother used to took several days cooking ocheshi every end of year. But since the last year, my grandparents are not at the house anymore, my mother stared buying osechi from a store. The picture is for the osechi we had this year.



My wife, Hiro made matcha-latte for herself on the New Year day.
1. 2 scoop (2g) of match and sugar into a teabowl
2. Pour hot milk (60ml) into the teabowl
3. Mix the matcha and milk with a tea whisk for 20 seconds
She made it as my usual recipe. She used very fine matcha for it, which we bought just for New Year holidays. But, she didn’t like the latte. It tasted like something's missing. I think the latte needed more bitterness. Fine matcha is very generous and has less bitterness. Fine mellow matcha and milk made the latte too mild. I think more reasonable bitterer matcha will suit for matcha-latte; like strong bitter espresso makes good café-latte. So when you make matcha-latte, don’t use expensive matcha. Use cheep one (^-^) Have a nice day!


* After using the tea whisk with milk, immediately rinse it with running water really well; remained milk component can be a cause of getting mold.

Tea and the AVATER

Happy New Year!! I’m back from my New Year holidays! We spent some time at my parents place and my wife's family home, and went a trip to Gero hot spring resort in Gifu prefecture. I have a lot of things I’d like to talk about. I’ll tell you about my holidays little at a time.


In the end of last year, I went to a theater for AVATER. It was my first 3D movie since CAPTAIN EO at Disneyland about two decades ago. First of all, it was amazing, and was the Hollywood type of film I was waiting for! It was a great entertainment.
3D glasses were handed out when I was getting in the theater. Somehow I was expecting cheap paper glasses, but actually they were quite good glasses (red ones in the picture). 3D effect was weird in the beginning, but I got used to it in a second. During the film it was pretty natural, and it helped drawing me into the story. The only difference from the real sight is that you can focus wherever you want in real vision, but you can’t in the 3D movie. There was only one focus point in the picture. Even if you wanted to look at background or foreground, usually they were little blurred. Of cause there were some scenes filmed with deep depth of field, and clear from foreground to background. The beautiful pictures are not only feature of this movie. I also enjoyed the story. I felt almost like exploring and learning a new planet “Pandora” myself with the main character. Communicating with natives, learning their culture, and building relationship with them were interesting.
By the way, what beverage do you usually have at a theater? Coke? In Japan, we of course have coke and some sodas. And also teas and coffee. I don’t remember if they had English tea, but I found oolong tea and green tea there. Green tea in a theater? It’s kind of Japanese, don’t you think? I had popcorn and oolong tea. Do you think popcorn with oolong tea is little strange? It is not that bad. Try it when you go to a theater in Japan.
May this year be happy and fruitful for everyone!!

Deep-steamed sencha served at a tea shop

Hello, everyone! We went to a tea shop, Ochahiko in my town, to buy teas for year-end gift. We got a package of sencha and kabusecha for our tea master (picture on the right). I think it was kind of the same thing we got for the summer gift. We also got gyokuro for our parents.

At the tea shop, they served us a cup of sencha while we are waiting for the rapping. It was deep-steamed sencha. Brewed tea color was dark green, and it was darker than what I usually prepare. I think they used plenty of leaves to prepare the tea. It was strong, but wasn’t much bitter. It had rich green tea flavor and nice umami. I pretty liked it.

Our shop is closing between Dec.30 to Jan.5 for the winter holidays. I’m taking days off, so I won’t update this blog for a while. Thank you for visiting my blog, and I hope everyone has a great new year and all is well with you!! See you in the next year!

Rice cracker, Senbei

Hello, everyone! My today’s snack with tea was Senbei, Japanese rice cracker, which is very popular in Japan. Many people enjoy senbei at their tea time. There is various kind of senbei. The one I had today was kind of thin, but very basic type of syo-sauce flavored senbei. Senbei is crunchy and has nice roasted soy-sauce and backed rice flavor. It really goes well with green tea. I wish you a happy Christmas!!

Bottle of strong sencha

Hey, everyone. I’ve got a bottle of sencha. What I got is O-i, Ocha RICH from Itoen. I have introduced regular O-i, Ocha before. This is stronger than regular O-i, Ocha. I think this is richer in bitterness, and I’m not sure if it has richer umami. The accentuated bitterness softens umami impression. It will be good with sweets or at meals. But personally I prefer regular O-I, Ocha. Have a nice day!

Reasonable sencha

Hi, everyone! When I went to a grocery store yesterday, I found some reasonable teas. They were about 300-400yen / 100g. They were all Itoen brand, and regular, deep-steamed, and matcha-flavored sencha, and hojicha. I haven’t try them, but I think those reasonably priced teas will be appreciated for your daily. I have hard Itoen does some good work producing regular-quality sencha. I want to try them sometime. Have a nice day!!

It snowed on Saterday.

How was your weekend everyone? Here in Seto, it’s been very cold in these few days by a cold wave covered the Japanese archipelago. On Saturday, my MINI was covered by snow. As I mentioned last week, we are doing general house cleaning on weekends. This weekend, I painted preservative on our wood deck. It was tiring and outside was freezin. I was wearing garbage plastic bag (T_T) Sorry there is nothing about tea today...

Removal tea strainer teapot

Hi, everyone. When you look for a teapot for Japanese tea, tea strainer will be one of an important factor to choose a pot. Today, let’s talk about a teapot with removal tea strainer.

Good things about a teapot with removal tea strainer are…
-There is no chance of pouring problems because of clogged strainers like with fixed tea strainers.
-It can prevent continued brewing of the tea by taking out the strainer with leaves when brewed tea still remains in a pot.
-It is easy to clean the strainer.
-It is relatively reasonable.
-These strainers are usually made of metal or plastic, and have fine mesh. So, it can be good for either regular or deep-steamed sencha.

There are some negative points about a teapot with removal tea strainer.
-The brewing space is not as large as fixed strainer teapots. Therefore, it does not brew quite as well as fixed strainer teapots.
-It is not good for preparing few serving. There is space below tealeaves with this kind teapot, and the leaves will not be soaked enough in little water.

I usually use this type of teapot for casual use, like my daily tea at work or at friends gathering. Please think about both merits and demerits of strainers when you look for a teapot. Take care and have a good weekend!

Our master showed us her temae.

Hi, everyone! This morning it snowed little in Seto. It doesn’t snow much here. It may be only several times in a season. I think it used to snow much more when I was a kid. An effect of global warming? I hope nations will reach an agreement at COP15.


Last night at the tea lesson, our master played a host and showed us her temae. It was the second time since Hiro started taking the lesson, and an important opportunity to us to see her temae. I watched her preparing the tea with eager curiosity, and was trying to learn anything from her performance. Her flowing movement was just beautiful and practical. Even attitude of her hands holding the tea bowl was nice and graceful, and different from our uncouth one. I notice that my movement was crude, especially when hitting the tea bowl edge with teascoop to flick off excess matcha remained on it. Our master’s gesture was gentler. I had a lot of things to learn by watching her temae. Have a nice day!

Fish-shaped cake, taiyaki!

Hi, everyone. Today, I had taiyaki, Fish-shaped cake at my tea time. Taiyaki is pretty popular in Japan. The taste is not anything related to fish. The classic taiyaki is fish-shaped pancake stuffed with bean jam. So, it is just a sweet cake. The outside pancake is brown and sweet been past inside is dark gray for the classic taiyaki. But, taiyaki is evolving with times. New staffing came out, something like chocolate, or custard. And now white taiyaki is in fashion! The one I had today was that the white outside was a kind of rice cake, and custard was filled inside. It was so good!! I enjoyed with sencha, which I brewed with high temperature water (about 90C) to bring out rich bitterness. Have a nice day!

Haiyu kannyu sencha cup

How are you doing, everyone? Japanese people have a custom of doing a general year-end cleaning of both the inside and outside of their homes to greet the New Year. I used to do it in the last week of the year, but it has always been kind of stressful. So, we decided to do the cleaning little by little on each weekend in whole December. This weekend, I cleaned the bathroom, and Hiro did the cupboards and drawers in the kitchen (^-^)


The other day, I went to a potter’s studio to pick up new tea cups for my shop. The potter served me nice sencha with the cup. The cup is kannyu finished. Kannyu is cracking on the surface, which is created by difference of coefficients of clay and glaze. The cracking on a brand new piece (on the left in the picture) is not so obvious. As you use the cup the cracking appears more clearly and gives it a stately look (on the right). I think a charm of kannyu is that you can enjoy the gradual change in cracking expression as you use it, and make one-of-a-kind your own piece. I hope I can introduce it in the near future on our shop. Have a nice day!