Gyokuro from Kyoto, Fukuoka and Shizuoka

At the World O-CHA (Tea) Festival, there was a booth for gyokuro, which was hosted by three gyokuro regions: Kyoto, Fukuoka and Shizuoka. They said that they were the big three gyokuro production prefectures in Japan. I don’t know why they are called as such. The data I have shows discrepancy in numbers on the production amount of gyokuro. The largest amounts of gyokuro production in 2008 are: 1.Kyoto 2.Mie 3.Fukuoka 4.Kumamoto 5.Shizuoka. I guess the three gyokuro regions were meant to be regarded the three Famous or Popular gyokuro regions. Anyway, I took gyokuro workshops of each production. I also bought some gyokuro that I tried at the workshops, so that I can try them at home. Actually, Yame (Fukuoka) gyokuro had another individual booth. I bought Yame tea at the individual booth.

Here are the teas I bought: from the left Uji (Kyoto) gyokuro, Yame (Fukuoka) gyokuro, and Asahina (Shizuoka) gyokuro.

Which one do you like by the appearance? Which one looks expensive?


Uji (Kyoto) gyokuro 5000yen/100g,
Yame (Fukuoka) gyokuro 5000yen/100g
Asahina (Shizuoka) gyokuro 2500yen/100g

Asahina gyokuro was reasonable than others, but still good looking. The leaves of Yame gyokuro were small pieces. I thought the Uji gyokuro had the best appearance in these three. I brewed and tasted them. On the next blog, I’ll write about it. See you soon!

Suspension of air freight to the U.S.A.

This is a notification from my online-shop, Everyone's Tea

To all our customers based in the US,

Air freights over 16 oz to the United States are suspended by for security reasons due to terrorist threats to the US. Most of the packages we ship are over 16 oz. We can no longer send it by EMS (Express Mail Service). Therefore during the suspension, we ship packages to the US via sea freight, which will take about 2-3 months for delivery. The shipping charge is 1,300yen. The suspension starts from Nov 17 2010, and we do not know how long it will last. We are sorry for any inconvenience.

Everyone's Tea
http://www.everyonestea.com/

Shizuku-cha at World O-CHA Festival

“sizuku” means trickle, drip or drop. We tried shizuku-cha, one of the ways of preparing gyokuro, at Yame gyokuro booth at the World O-CHA (Tea) Festival. It is used with a cup with a lid, instead of using a teapot. It is called sizuku-cha at Yame region (Fukuoka). There are some other names for this style of gyokuro preparation.



You put tea leaves and hot water in the cup, and wait for two minutes, and drink it directly from the cup. You hold the cup with your left hand, and tilt the lid with right hand, and drink the tea from the aperture (tiny opening). The point is trying not to have tea leaves to come out with the tea. So you don’t want to tilt the lid too much, and make a big space between the cup and lid. Other than not using a teapot, other conditions for the preparation are pretty much the same as ordinary gyokuro brewing.

Is it about leaves or brewing condition?

On the last post, I introduced an Asahina gyokuro brewing which I learned at the World O-CHA (Tea) Festival. When I tried the gyokuro at the festival, the brewed tea was clear and bright. But when I tried the brewing method at home with my daily gyokuro, the tea got darker, greener and murkier. I wonder if it is about leaves or brewing condition. Is Asahina gyokuro different from other gyokuro? So today I did a little experiment to brew the Asahina gyokuro and my gyokuro in a same condition.


*** Condition ***
Tea leaves: 4g
Water: 20ml room temperature
Brewing time: 1.5minuts


The leaves on the left are the Asahina gyokuro, and the leaves on the right are my gyokuro.



These are the brewed teas. (Asahina-left, My gyokuro-right)
The result was that both got murky green. So, I guess this is not about tea leaves. It’s about water and a teapot used. I think especially the strainer on the teapots has effect on brewed tea color. The teapot used at the festival had a metal fine-mesh strainer. The teapot at home has a ceramic strainer, which is a fine-mesh type but still not as fine as the metal one. I think the difference of strainer made the tea murky. I loved either tea at festival and home. They are both good.

Delicious gyokuro by perverse brewing

At The World O-CHA (Tea) Festival, I joined four gyokuro workshops. There was a booth for gyokuro from the three major regions, Yame (Fukuoka), Uji (Kyoto), and Asahina (Sihzuoka). Each region had workshop and introduced little different ways of brewing gyokuro.



Today I would like to tell you about the way of brewing that I learned at the Asahina (Shizuoka) workshop. I thought it was very unique. Here, we learned cold water brewing, which is not unique about. What unique about was the brewing time and the way of pouring. Each participant got a personal tea set, and could try it by him or herself. Let’s take a look at the steps!

1. Put 4g of Asahina gyokuro into the teapot
2. Add room temperature water (not iced water)
3. Wait one and half minutes
4. Gently move the teapot in a circular motion to agitate and pour a little tea into a cup, and circle the teapot again and pour a little tea, and repeat it until you pour all of the tea.

We tried this cold brewed tea. It was so good. It was clear and sweet. I didn’t find bitterness. I was impressed with the good taste by the unique brewing. It was still good on the second and third brewing.
So what were the unique things? Yes, the time of brewing and the way of pouring. The brewing time was one and half minutes! It is usually said the time for gyokuro is about two minutes with warm water. If you are brewing with cold water, the brewing time should be longer than that. But it was only one and half minutes actually.
To make up for the short brewing time, the pouring will be the other point. I think the delicious tea will be completed by agitating the leaves and water as you pour the tea. Shaking or circling the teapot is a perverse thing to do on Japanese way of tea brewing. But the instructor encouraged us to break rules. He said he has tried many other ways, such as not moving the teapot and brewing longer time as ordinary way. But he could not get anything good as this tea. Also the water temperature, he said. He has tried different temperature of water, warmer and colder. But he got the best result with room temperature water.
I think brewing with room temperature water is easy and simple, and you still get good tea. It will be worth to try!

Pretreatment for pottery

One of our customers asked me if you need pretreatment for brand-new *pottery wares. He found a video on YouTube that tells you to boil the item in tea before using.
>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F8llnG2Bgg


My brief answer will be “I personally think you do not have to do it.”
I don’t do it myself, either.

The method in the video is a little different. What I know is that instead of tea, we use **rice washings. If not available, you can boil water with a little rice in it or you can also use flour. This is a kind of tradition and many ceramic shops and makers still recommend doing the treatment.

I think the purpose of the treatment is …
1. To prevent water leak
2. To get milder kannyu (crackle pattern)
3. To sterilize

I personally think this treatment is mainly for the first reason, preventing water leak. Pottery has very minute space between grains. With some rough grain potteries, if you leave water in them for a long time, the water will leak from the surface slowly. By boiling with rice, the rice grain will get into the minute space in the pottery, and fill up.

I’ve asked ceramic makers and artists about it. There are many different opinions about this tradition. An artist said that this theory has no scientific basis and the particle of rice that gets in the pottery could cause molding.

I’m not sure about the effect for the second reason, getting milder crackle. For the third reason, of course you need to clean brand new wares, but I think regular washing is enough.

I think you don’t have to do the treatment because first, it is very troublesome and second, nowadays, very few potteries leak. I hope my opinion help you to understand about the pretreatment for potteries.



*pottery: In Japanese, there are two major words for ceramics. One is “jiki” and another one is “toki”. Jiki is porcelain, which is hard ceramics, impermeable, and has half-translucent. On the other hand, toki is little permeable and non-translucent. In this article I was referring to toki ceramics. So the treatment is for this particular ceramic and not for porcelain.

**rice washings: We rinse rice with water in a bowl before cooking. The water gets murky white after rinsing. We usually throw away the water. You can use the water for the pretreatment.



This is my flower vase, which leaks. It is okay for a short item use. But after using a couple of days, I find that the bottom of the vase is wet and sweating. I am using the vase as it is. I might need the treatment for this vase (^_^;)

This is the bottom of the vase.

It's dry on this photo.

Photos from the O-CHA festival

There were some events and exhibitions at the World O-CHA (Tea) Festival.

The festival is not only for Japanese tea. I think this was Chinese tea exhibition.



A Tokoname teapot artist was making teapots.



There were many tea gatherings held around the festival.



There were food booths outside. You could try many different Japanese first foods.



Free tea tastings



Tea wares contest



Huge tea whisk!

World O-CHA (Tea) Festival 2010

World O-CHA (Tea) Festival was held in Shizuoka Japan between Oct 28 and 31 2010. It is held every three or four years and this was the fourth. We went there on 30 and 31. It was free to get in. We were exited and enjoyed the festivalヽ(^。^)ノ


Tea makers, shops, and tea related associations participated. There were many booths of theirs. You could buy things, try some sample tea, see some exhibitions, and attend tea ceremonies, contests and workshops.


I was thinking to join some paid tea ceremony and workshops. But there were also some booths offered free tea tasting and workshops. So, I thought “why don’t we try free ones first?”. In the two days, we tried seven little free workshops including four gyokuro workshops. Plus, we had many tea tastings. Too much green tea sometimes makes your stomach upset. We had stomach irritation at the end of the both day, and didn’t have room for the paid tea ceremony and workshops, ha ha … (^_^;) But we has so much fan by trying many different teas.

Temomicha retains the original form of leaf

The leaves on the left are average sencha, and the leaves on the right are temomicha (manual kneaded tea) I made. The dry leaves look different, but leaves after brewing are also different.



The average sencha leaves are broken and small. On the other hand, the temomicha leaves retain the original form of leaf. Isn’t it interesting? This temomicha is made by beginners, so some leaves are broken. The temomicha made by masters will retain more beautiful original form. I believe that brings out the pure profound flavor of green tea.

Mushroom soup in a teapot?

It’s cloudy and cool today. The season for autumn leaves just started in our area. It also the season for Matsutake mushrooms! It is a popular and expensive mushroom in Japan. I had a chance to have Matsutake last night. They were Matsutake rice, Matsutake soup, and grilled Matsutake. They were good, or I think they were good because they are expensive (^.^;) But they weren’t bad at all actually. I really love the soup.



Anyway, you might notice that the soup is in a teapot. This type of pot is called dobin. Of cause, dobin is used as teapots, but sometimes used for soup. The soup made in dobin called dobinmushi. I like dobinmushi. It’s nice to have the soup as pouring it into a little cup yourself (^-^)

What is The Way of Tea, or the Japanese tea ceremony?

Japanese Chanoyu or Sado (Chado) is translated as The Way of Tea. It’s not just about drinking tea. The Way of Tea is a traditional composite art regarding the tea ceremony including the philosophy, mode of behavior, and materialistic elements. The Way of Tea has had huge influences on Japanese cultures.

The tea used for The Way of Tea is called matcha. It is powdered green tea. A teapot is not used to prepare the tea, instead, use a tea bowl and tea whisk; put the matcha into a tea bowl; add hot water; and mix them with a tea whisk. Then people drink it from the bowl.

A tea ceremony is held in a tea room with a host, guests and right utensils. And all the procedures and movements are standardized. It starts from entering to the tea room. Let’s take a look at the basic steps of the tea ceremony.

1. The Guests get into the room
2. The host brings in the utensils into the room
3. The host purifies the utensils
4. The guests have sweets.
5. The host prepares and serves the tea
6. The Guests drink the tea
7. The host clean and put away the utensils
8. The host leaves the room with utensils
9. The guests get out of the room

At our tea lesson, the ceremony for two guests will take about twenty minutes. Some formal tea ceremonies will take a half day, including a meal and a couple of tea.


I think the most important thing in The Way of Tea is the spiritual aspects. The essential is hospitality, or I should say kindness. Thinking of others is important.
The Way of Tea also involves many other spiritual thoughts or lessons.
Such as …
*Coexisting with nature, and blessing of the nature and seasons
*Giving importance to mutual accord and relationship
*Finding beauty in simple, rustic, or imperfect things
And more…
I believe the spiritual aspects have matured tea into The Way of Tea, and you need lifetime training to realize these philosophies.

I think we, Japanese enjoy the tea ceremonies because you can take a break from your daily life, experience the special space and time, and find the peace though the tea (^-^)

Temomicha that I made

We call hand-kneaded tea teamomicha. (Or should I say “hand-rubbed”? Would someone tell me correct English?) The tea on the right is the temomicha that we made at the temomicha workshop. On the left is average sencha. The temomicha is very good in shapes and profound in color.



The leaves we used this temomicha were excellent ones, which were higher-ranking tea in this year tea contest. It should have become great temomicha. It had mellow flavor with rich umami. But, I didn’t like the teamomicha we made. Unfortunately it has a bad flavor of heat damage (+o+) It was made by some beginners including me. Maybe, we were too slow kneading, I don’t know. I’m so disappointed with the taste.