Tea kneading workshop 1

Japanese tea used to be manually made by steaming, kneading, and drying. But the most teas are produced by machines today. I attended a tea kneading workshop, which I experienced the traditional tea making. I was very excited about it.

I had read about tea making by hand, and seen some pictures. But I was not quite sure about the exact processes.



It was a wonderful experience. I kneaded the leaves on a tea-drier-table for six hours as I felt the soft touch of leaves, the warmth of the drier table, and the smell of green tea. I was so excited in watching the change of the soft leaves becoming thinner like a needle-shaped tea.

I can naturally understand how tea is made, without a doubt, for I have experienced it myself. If you were to ask me to do it again, I could not do it (^_^;)

Tea drier table ; you place a gas stove in the table and the top panel of the table gets warm.

Confectionery shop with café place, Isuzu-chaya at Okage-yokocho

At Okage-yokocho, we found another sweets shop, Isuzu-chaya. It was a nice old building.

They also have café place. I wanted to have some matcha and sweets, but we had just had akafuku-mochi, and were kind of full. So we didn’t have anything here. I just took some pictures and left. Maybe, the next time when we visit Okage-yokocho, we would like to stop by and have tea time here.



Isuzu-chaya web page >>> http://www.isuzuchaya.com/index.htm

Akafuku at Okage-yokocho

There are many shops at Okage-yokocho in Ise as I told you on the last post. Ise is a coastal city, so they are abundant in seafood. There are some shops grilling or deep fring some seafood with nice smell at the front of the store. We had some grilled oysters and sea urchin. I don’t like oysters much but Hiro loves them.




At Okage-yokocho, there are some Akafuku stores. Akafuku is a popular confectionery store originally from Ise. I have introduced about Matsuzakaya-Nagoya branch before on my blog. >>> http://everyonestea.blogspot.com/2010/04/akafuku-cafe.html We stopped by the main store of Akafuku for tea. We had Akafuku-mochi at the cafe and the tea served with it was hojicha. Hojicha is roasted tea.


They are actually roasting the tea with their own tea roaster at the store. Hojicha is usually roasted at tea stores. This is very unique for a café to have its own tea roaster. You can smell the nice roasted aroma at the store and I think the aroma stimulates your appetite.



You will find a small room at the store which Akafuku-mochi is made. Two ladies were actually making it in the room when we visited.

Homemade tea by tea farmers from Ise

Another destination on the Mie trip was Ise. In Ise, there is a very famous shrine called Ise-jingu, which has a 20,000 year history. Actually Ise-jingu is a general name of the cluster of 125 shrines. The main shrine has been rebuilt every twenty years since 690 BC. I think it helps to inherit the architectural technologies and maintenance techniques. The next reconstruction ceremony is going to be in 2013.

Ise-jingu is in the nature.

These are not the main shrine, sorry.

Ise-jingu website >>> http://www.isejingu.or.jp/shosai/english/index.htm




There are the streets called Okage-yococho next to Ise-jingu. You will find many shops like cafes, restaurants, or gift shops there. There are also some tea shops. The tea which is produced in this area is called Ise-cha. Ise-cha is not as well-known as Shizuoka-cha, Uji-cha, or Yame-cha. But Actually Mie prefecture is the third largest tea production region in Japan, and makes good teas.

I found interesting tea at Isecha-dokoro, one of the tea shops. Tea farmers usually take their picked tea leaves to a tea factory. So, generally tea is usually produced in factories. But the tea I found was the tea farmers’ homemade tea. I thought it’s very unique, and each farmer would have his or her own commitment and love to their tea. I guess the tea will taste simple and homely. I bought a set of tea from three different farmers. Each package is 30g, and the set was 1,000yen. I’m looking forward to trying them (^-^)

Isecha-dokoro webpage (Japanese) >>> http://www.okageyokocho.co.jp/shop/noasobi.html#isecha

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