Welcome drink at ryokan, Suimeikan

Hi, everyone! This is a year of Tiger in Japan. There was a tiger statue at a ryokan, Japanese-style hotel we stayed in Gero hot spring resort. The ryokan that we stayed there for a night was Suimeikan. In Japan, people enjoy hot spring bath and meals featuring local specialties at ryokan. Most ryokan have the casual cotton kimono known as youkata for guests (what we ware in the picture). Japanese bathing culture is a little different from western. There is washing space outside of the bathtub, and tub is just a place for soaking in hot water. I think, for many Japanese, “Taking bath” implies relaxing in hot water, rather than simply washing your body. So, some people soak in bath several times in a day, after all that’s the main reason for a trip to hot spring.


Suimeikan is a nice hotel. They served matcha as welcome drink at our room. I think typical ryokan serve sencha. I was happy with the matcha, and it made me relaxed. The taste of matcha was not as good as what we have at tea lessons, but wasn’t too bad. The matcha and little sweet relieved my weariness of the long drive.

Have a nice day!

Senbe at Senbe-do in Takayama

I hope everyone is fine at countries suffering by big chill now.

We visited Tkayama in Gifu prefecture on our holiday trip. Takayama has popular streets with old houses remaining from Edo period where many tourists visit. There are merchants’ houses, sake breweries, and private houses there. The other day, I introduced senbe (Japanese rice cracker) on my blog. It’s one of the best snack for green tea, I think. There is my favorite senbe shop, called Senbe-do on the ancient street in Takayama. They have many kind of senbe; soy, sugar, red peppers, seaweed-rapped, miso and more, and are grilling some senbe at the front of the shop. It gives off a nice roasted senbe smell to the street, and people follow the smell into the shop. My favorite is basic soy senbe. I like their senbe for the good crunchy texture and delicious soy flavor by backing until beautiful brown. We bought a package of the soy senbe, but I forgot to take a picture before we ate, sorry… If you have a chance to visit Takayama, try their senbe. Have a nice day!

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!