Iga Ninja Museum

Today's post is not related to tea, sorry. It's a journal of my Mie trip.

Iga city is well known for ninja. We went to Iga Ninja Museum. It is a small museum of ninja. There was a ninja house, and it looked like a simple farm dwelling. They showed some hidden traps and escape routes in the house on a little tour.

Hidden revolving door


Hidden sword under floor




Iga Ninja Museum webpage >>> http://iganinja.jp/en/index.html



We also visited to Iga-Ueno castle next to the museum.
Iga-Ueno castle webpage (Japanese) >>> http://www.ict.ne.jp/~uenojyo/

View from the castle

Tea porridge at MokuMoku-Tezukuri-farm in Mie prefecture

This weekend we went to Mie prefecture. Mie is the next prefecture of ours, and it was about 2-3 hours drive. We visited MokuMoku-tezukuri-farm in Iga city. They have a buffet restaurant in their park. I don’t remember how much it was for sure, but I think it was about 1800-1900yen for lunch. In their dishes, there was hojicha tea porridge. I don’t know how it was made, but I guess the rice was boiled with tea, instead of water. It had subtle tea flavor, and I liked it. I usually want to try many different dishes at a buffet restaurant, so I get very small portion for each (^-^) Do you get a lot only for what you like?


MokuMoku-Tezukuri-farm webpage (Japanese)
>>> http://www.moku-moku.com/farm/index.html

How to brew gyokuro

How do you usually prepare gyokuro? Gyokuro tastes different by how to brew it. It should be prepared differently from sencha brewing. The differences are the amount and temperature of water, and brewing time. Here I’ll introduce a basic way of gyokuro brewing.


*** Tea wares ***
Very small teapot (100ml/3.53oz) and cups (20ml/0.7oz)
Water cooler (a small bowl)
Example of gyokuro tea set (my past blog) >>> http://everyonestea.blogspot.com/2010/04/tea-set-for-gyokuro.html



*** Steps for preparing gyokuro for four servings ***

Pour boiling water into the teapot.
This is to warm the pot and lower the temperature of the hot water.













Pour the water from the tea pot to four tea cups.
This is to warm up the cups, and to cool the water more. One cup of water is about 20ml (0.7oz). If you have water left in the teapot, dump it away.












Pour the water from the cups to water cooler.
This makes the water cooler a little more. When you hold the water cooler with your hands, it should be lukewarm. The correct water temperature is 40-60 degrees Celsius (104-140 deg. F) for Gyokuro. It should be higher temperature for low-grade tea and lower temperature for fine tea.











Put the tea leaves into the tea pot.
One scoop (about 3g / 0.106oz) makes one serving. This time, I put 12g (3g*4servings) of tea leaves into the teapot. The leaves on the tea spoon are 3g, and the leaves in the teapot are 12g.


























Pour the water from the water cooler into the teapot.














The amount of water would be just enough to cover the tea leaves.














Put a lid on the teapot and leave it for two minutes.
You should adjust the brewing time for your environment.













After two minutes, the leaves would absorb the water, and be half open.














Pour the brewed tea into cups.
Serve the tea by pouring small amounts into each cup in turns. Repeat until each cup is full. This would make each cup have an even consistency. Serve all the tea in the pot.












Some water were absorbed by leaves, so the each portion would not be too much (about 13ml / 0.45oz). The tea has very rich umami, and you will be surprised how different is it from sencha.

The points of gyokuro brewing are …
1. Very small portion (20ml/serving)
2. Low temperature water (40-60 deg. C / 104-140F)
3. Long brewing time (2 minutes)

You can use same set of leaves couple times. Just refill the teapot with warm water.

Reasonable sweets at supermarket

Usually a piece of sweets costs about 120-300yen at Japanese confectionery stores. I found reasonable sweets at supermarket today. They were on sale. A package for four pieces was sold at 98yen. How cheap! They are not as good as the sweets sold at confectionary stores, but it’s better than nothing. I often have this kind of reasonable sweets to enhance my casual tea time at home. They make me happy!!

Kuwakojoku, utensil stand

At hira temae, natsume (the container for tea) and fresh-water container are brought in the tea room by the host during temae. But with the temae with a utensil stand, the tea container and fresh-water container are already prepared before the temae starts, and displayed on the stand.


This month, we are practicing temae with kuwakojoku utensil stand. This utensil stand is used in the summer. You place natsume on the top and the fresh-water container on the second shelf on kuwakojoku.

Flowers of the day, Jun 23 – Sep 22

Here are the flowers displayed at our tea lessons between Jun 23 and Sep 22.

Jun 23 I liked the vase.



















July 7



















Sep 15



















Sep 22

Unique lunch at a Japanese pickles shop

We went to a Japanese pickles shop, Yamatoya in Nagoya. It was a branch shop at Sakae underground mall. At the back of the shop, they have a very small restaurant, which has only six seats at the counter. They offer a unique dish only at lunch time.



In Japan, there are many kinds of pickles, made by different kind of vegetables* and ingredients**. They are usually served one or two kinds at a meal in a small amount as a subsidiary item. But Yamatoya made the pickles the main dish on their lunch menu. There were twelve kinds of pickles on the mail plate. I thought it was very unique. And it came with rice, miso soup, and two side dishes. Generically, pickles have distinctive flavors. I love some of them, and I don’t like some kinds. But, the twelve pickles were the kinds I love. The tea served with the lunch was hojicha. I was very satisfied with the lunch, and I want it sometime again.

Note
* The vegitables for Japanese pickles: Japanese radish, cucumber, Chinese cabbage, plum, carrot, egg apple, burdock or so on.
** The ingredients for Japanese pickles: Salt, sake lees, miso, rice-bran, or so on.

Yamatoya URL (Japanese) >>> http://www.moriguchizuke.co.jp/index.html

Bottled mild green tea, O-i ocha maroyaka

The other day I tried a bottled tea. It was a new version of the popular brand, O-i ocha. It says maroyaka,which means mellow or mild. It sure was mellow. But I didn’t like this tea much. It was little too mild. There was no bitterness. It is much milder than regular green tea. You can drink it like water. So the tea is good for when you are thirsty. I guess this is made to fit that kind of needs. If you are not a big fun of green tea, you could start with this tea.

Matcha shave ice at Komeda

We stopped by a café, Komeda coffee on the way home from the ceramic festival. Komeda is local coffee shop chain. It was so hot on the day, and I had a shaved ice with condensed milk and matcha syrup. I don’t remember the price, but it was probably around 600-700yen. It was not a reasonable shaved ice, but it was very good. We all loved it. The ice was very fine saved, and light. The amount of the syrup was just right, not too much or less. It was my favorite kinds　(^-^)

Tea lesson after a long interval

It’s getting cooler these days, here. But it was extremely hot this summer. We didn’t have the tea lessons these two months. Our master wanted to have a little break from the lesson because of the heat of the summer. Last night we had a lesson after a long interval. I realized again how much I love tea ceremonies. It’s not just about tea. It’s about all the experience regarding the ceremony.

Our master is showing the correct movements for purifying the tea whisk.

Ceramic festival in my town

This weekend there was a ceramic festival in my town, called Setomono-matsuri. This is held at the downtown of Seto city in this season. The main street become free of vehicle during the festival, and many stands for ceramics, foods or games will open on the street.
We went to the festival. But it was extremely hot with the scorching sun on the day, and we could not stay there for a long time. I didn’t buy any ceramics, just got some snacks and drink, and came home. I wish the weather was a little milder. By contrast, it was a crisp autumn weather today (^-^)

Single malt whisky and chocolat

This Saturday there was a work shop hosted by the Nihoncha (or Japanese tea) instructor association. But it was not a work shop for Japanese tea. It was for whisky. Tea and alcohol have a common aspect, which they are not essential to human life, but they are drank to be enjoyed.
I learned the mariage of chocolat and whisky. We have tasted five different whiskies (three Scotch and two Japanese) and chocolates. The whiskies are all single malt whisky and 12 years aged.


Glenfiddich: fruity and smooth
Hakushu: little smoky and sweet
Yamazaki: nice and profound, aroma like vanilla and taste like coconuts
Bowmore: Dry and smoky
The Macallan: Mellow and full body


I don’t drink whisky much. I usually have reasonable whiskies. This is my first time to try these good ones. They are all good. I loved Glenfiddich with the wonderful aroma. I also loved The Macallan and Yamazaki. I did not so much like smoky whisky. The theory for the marriage is to try the whisky and chocolate that have the common taste in the flavor. We enjoyed smoky flavor whisky with bitter chocolate, fruity whisky with fruity chocolate, or full body whisky with profound framboise chocolate. I thought the theory made sense. I think the same theory can be applied to Japanese tea and sweets or snacks.