Omotenashi-spirit, hospitality at Japanese hotel

今日は雪です。この辺では年に数回しかふらないんだけどね。今日はちょっと積ってきてます(^-^)

I’ll introduce some omotenashi (hospitality) that I found at the ryokan (Japanese-style Hotel).

When we checked in the hotel and got in our room, the maid put our shoes away into the shoebox. She arranged the slippers. Slippers are not allowed in the room. You do not wear any slippers or shoes in a tatami room. The slippers are to walk around in the hotel. In the morning we checked out, without noticing, the maid has already prepared our shoes and returned the slippers in the shoe box.



They have light cotton kimono called yukata for guests. Many guests wear yukata and hang around in the hotel. It can also be a nightwear. They are usually average sized. When we arrived, the maid asked us our height and changed the youkata size for the ones needed. At many ryokan, the sizes you can choose from are limited to S, M and L But at this ryokan, they also have median sizes available. I thought it was a good service.




They also had socks for guest. This service was only for the high-grade rooms, not for the regular rooms. Do you notice the interesting design of the socks? The big toe is separated. This is similar to Japanese traditional socks and I guess it’s to fit Japanese sandals or wooden clogs.



They had a new year’s gift for us. It was a sake cup that is a white porcelain vessel with a golden kanji character. The meaning of character is rabbit, the animal of the year.



The breakfast for the regular room was buffet meal at the hotel’s restaurant. There are not only western meals but also Japanese dishes. What I liked about it was that a chef was making omelet on the demand of guests. I loved the hot and nice omelet. I thought this is a kind of omotenashi of the hotel.




The breakfast for the high-grade rooms was brought and served at our room. Before breakfast, sencha green tea and umeboshi (pickled plum) were served. I don’t know the reason why pickled plum is served with tea. Anyway we waited for breakfast preparation over tea. It was nice omotenashi.

Welcome drink at ryokan, Japanese-style hotel

ずっとサボってたけど今日久しぶりにウォーキングしましたv(^o^)v　三日坊主で終わらなければいいけど。。。

We visited Gero hot spring resort in Gifu prefecture on New Year holidays two years in a row from 2010. We stayed in Sumeikan, a ryokan or Japanese-style hotel. Omotenashi-spirit which means hospitality is valued in The Way of Tea. You can also find omotenashi at ryokan as well. I would like to talk about the trip and ryokan focusing on omotenashi-spirit for a week.



This year, we stayed at Suimeikan for two days, one day at a regular room and a nicer room on the next day. They served tea to welcome guests. Sencha was served at the regular room. Matcha was served at the nicer room. At Suimeikan, tea was prepared in other room and brought to us. At some ryokan, the welcome tea can be prepared by a maid in your room. At some reasonable ryokan, you will find a tea set on the table and prepare the tea yourself.

Sencha with some snacks at the regular room
The tea came in a cup with lid.



Matcha at the higher-grade room

Matcha on the go

今朝（けさ）は寒（さむ）かったぁ(+o+)　-3℃でした。車（くるま）のフロントガラスの霜（しも）がハンパない。。。

I sometimes visit my grandpa at the nursing home. I of course visited him on New Year’s with my family.



My grandpa is hard of hearing, so we can’t have smooth conversations. But we do not need many words when we have tea together. We can communicate through tea, so I sometimes bring my tea set and serve him matcha. He is very happy when we do that. It’s nothing special. It is just an ordinary tea time, letting him choose a confection from the various and colorful sweets, preparing matcha in front of him and drinking it together. The natural moment spending with family over tea is the greatest pleasure and makes us smile. Not many words but we are definitely communicating though tea.

I think Japanese tea is a powerful tool for communication and peace. I think matcha should not only be served in a nice tea room or at a formal tea ceremony. You only need a whisk of tea and a tea bowl. You can take them anywhere you go and have peaceful time with your significant others. Why don’t you go out with your tea set and have fun?

Tea ceremony at Urakuen in Inuyama

こんにちは

After tenshin at the hotel, we moved to Urakuen for matcha (thin tea). Urakuen has a few tea houses surrounded by gardens with a lot of greens. As we went on the pass, the historical tea houses appeared from the trees. I was excited having tea in this nice place with a quiet and peaceful atmosphere.




Each ceremony was held with about 30-40 guests. I believe this Inuyama tea ceremony is popular. Many people were there, so we waited our turn for quite a while, maybe a half-hour in a waiting room and we moved to another waiting room and waited for another half-hour. Our turn came and we were led to the tea room. It was kind of a formal occasion, so I was not able to take photos of the ceremony. Sorry.　As I waited my tea, I looked around the room. The walls and pillars were old and tasteful, and the decorations on tokonoma were pleasing to the eye. My matcha came in a colorful bowl. I think it was a kyo ware. Various bowls used at the ceremony. The lady next me was having tea with a black raku bowl. The matcha and confectionary were pretty good. Not only the great taste of tea and sweets, but also I was happy with all the experiences regarding the ceremony. I thought it was an excellent experience relishing tea on tatami in the rustic tea room with the beautiful environment at New Year’s. I also though this is a good start of New Year!! And it will be a wonderful year for meヽ(^。^)ノ

This is our master and me in front of the tea house.


Some photos at Urakuen

Tenshin, light meal at tea ceremony

On the second of Jan, I went to Inuyama with Hiro and our tea master to join a tea ceremony. Inuyama is our nearby city in Aichi prefecture. The tea ceremony is held at Meitetsu-Inuyama Hotel and Urakuen which is next to the hotel. At the tea ceremony, tenshin (light meal for tea ceremony) was served at the hotel and matcha was at a tea room in Urakuen. We went to the hotel first. The tenshin was served in a big hall with tables, not in a Japanese tatami room. Eventhough people were wearing nice outfit (Some of them were wearing kimono), the tenshin ceremony seemed casual. You were seated on a first-come-first served basis. Formal manners for tea ceremony were not required so much, so we just enjoyed the meal (^-^)

This is the tenshin served there. It’s New Year, so the dishes were osech-style. Osechi is Japanese special meal for New Year. Sacred sake was also served, which is in the red vessel on the near side.



Zoni was served in a bowl. Zoni is a soup with rice cakes and vegetables. It is also a popular meal for New Year. Zoni has different tastes and ingredients from region to region. Zoni isn’t my favorite meal but the zoni served here was pretty good. I loved the tasty flavor of the soup.

The tea served with tenshin was hojicha ヽ(^。^)ノ

Sweets from a confectionary shop and supermarket

I went to Azumaken, my favorite confectionary shop in my town on the New Year’s Eve. There are several confectionary shops in the town, and I think Azumaken is the best. They might be a little expensive but their sweets look beautiful.

These are the sweets we bought at Azumaken. They were around 200yen each.



I also found some confectionary at a supermarket. They were about 100yen each. I don’t usually find this type of confections at the supermarket, but I guess it’s New Year so there are some demands. I bought them to compare how different from sweets at Azumaken.


The sweets from Azumaken were about double in the price, and looked sophisticated. The sweets from the supermarket were harsh in the color and crude in the design. Supermarket ones were not bad. I love these reasonable sweets, but they pale when compared to expensive sweets, as a matter of course.

There was a same design of sweets at both Azumaken and the supermarket. It was a plum-blossom-shaped confection. Do you see the difference?

They are made of sweet bean paste, and nothing taste like plum, though.


These are confectionary from Azumaken. They are images of crane and tortoise. Crane and tortoise are lucky animals in Japan.




These are also confectionary from Azumaken. The pink one on the left is an image of the rising sun with a design of big wave on it. I like the pretty color of hte sun and the great composition of the wave. I think the wave looks like The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Great_Wave_off_Kanagawa2.jpg).




We had osechi, a special meal in the morning of New Year Day. After osechi we enjoyed the confections with matcha.

Kokaen, tea shop in my town

Happy New Year, everyone! I’m back from the winter holidays (^-^). I had a lot of events on the holidays. I’ll write about them on this blog.


In our family tradition, we have matcha on New Year's Day. So, we usually buy matcha and confectionary on New Year’s Eve. I went to Kokaen in my town. It’s a small tea shop and run by an elderly lady. Kokaen is not a fancy store. It is cramped and cluttered, but sells good quality matcha, and they are much reasonable than urban tea shops. We got 2000yen/20g matcha, which our master usually buys for our tea lesson. It is expensive, but really good. It has good aroma, rich umami and very mild bitterness. We love the grade of matcha.

The matcha is grinded at the store. The lady is checking the mills.

Gyokuro prepared with 80degC water

Yesterday, I prepared gyokuro like sencha brewing. But it didn’t have much bitterness and it was too mellow. I didn’t like it very much. So I tried it again with higher temperature of water and shorter brewing time.

** Today’s condition **
Tea: Gyokuro 2g
Water: 80degC, 50ml
Brewing time: 90sec



Today’s tea got better. It had cross between good umami and bitterness and tasted like kabusecha (^-^) I think the higher temperature of water worked fine. I think it’s fun to explore tea.

My online-shop, Everyone’s Tea is closing between Dec.29 to Jan.5 for the winter holidays. Shipping for orders and replies to any inquiries during this period will be delayed until Jan. 6. We are sorry for any inconvenience. I’ll also take a break from posting new blog during the period. Thank you for reading my blog, see you in the next year! Have a great new year!!

Gyokuro prepared like sencha

When I went to Uji, Kyoto, I bought a package of sencha, called Soencha. Now I’m having that tea at home. It has very rich umami. I think it is more like kabusecha rather than sencha. To bring out its rich and savory flavor, I brew the tea with plenty of leaves. I really like Soencha, and now I’m pretty into it.

I am curious if I can brew the similar taste of tea with other leaves as well. Gyokuro has rich umami so I wondered if gyokuro will taste like Soench by preparing it with plenty of 70degC water. I mean I’m preparing gyokuro by sencha-brewing method.

*** Condition ***
Tea: gyokuro 7g
Water: 70degC, 200ml
Brewing time: 2 min



This is the tea I brewed. It was not terrible but not good. This is not high-grade gyokuro, so I found a little unpleasant taste in the brewed tea. It had rich umami but it didn’t have a good bitterness. Without the bitterness, the tea got too mellow. My experiment was a failure (^_^;) I want to try it again with higher temperature of water to bring out more bitterness.

Sweet dumplings

Last night, I went to a supermarket for shipping for Christmas dinner. It was pretty crowded with customers. I got some cheese and vestibules for cheese fondue, and a whole chicken. I also find reasonable sweets there. They were 98yen per package, which had 5 little pieces of sweet dumplings. I got two different packages. I already had two of each, so in the picture only three pieces left (^_^;)








These dumplings were the sweets to go with my today’s tea. The darker one has a white chewy dumpling covered with sweet bean paste. The white one is made of the white chewy stuff, and has sweet bean paste in it. Even though they are very reasonable, they give me a great pleasure for my tea time. I love those reasonable sweets (^-^) Wish you a Marry Christmas!

The last drops - sencha -

This is a continuation from the past blog. >>> “The last drops of tea from a teapot.”
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Summary;
Majority of books tell to pour all tea until the last drops of it from teapot into a cup. Because the last drops have the richest flavor. There is an opposing theory that you may pour or not pour the last drops to adjust the taste of your tea. I wondered how the last drops taste like.
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I actually brewed tea and tasted the last drops. Today, I used futsu-sencha (regular steamed). The last drops sure had a strong flavor. They were bitter but I also found flavorful umami behind the sharp bitterness. The after taste continued with the bitterness and a savory green tea aroma came through my nose. I thought they were too bitter to taste but not unpleasant.


I also compared the teas with the last drops and without the last drops.
A: Tea with the last drops
B: Tea without the last drops
C: The last drops only

** Conditions **
Tea: Futsu-sencha 2g
Water: 70ml, 70degC
Brewing time: 2mins

The brewed tea color was slightly brighter with Tea B and darker with A. With this tea and the conditions, A had nice taste with good body. B was light and weak and it was too mild for me. I have already explained about C earlier. Maybe throwing away the last drops doesn’t work for correctly-prepared sencha, and it will work when tea is accidently brewed strongly.

The last drops of tea from a teapot

Majority of books tell to pour all tea until the last drops of it from a teapot into a cup. There are two reasons for it. One is that the last drops have the richest flavor of the tea; they are sometimes called the golden drops, so that you don’t want to waste them. The other reason is that the reaming water in the teapot will make the leaves continue infusing, and will make the tea taste bad in the second brewing. That’s why most books recommend pouring all the tea in the teapot.

The other day I found an article which tells you that you can adjust the taste of your tea by pouring or not pouring the last drops from the teapot. With the last drops, the tea will be rich and profound. Without the last drops, the tea will get lighter and milder in taste. I thought it makes sense. I am naturally using this method. Whenever I pour tea into cups and I find that the tea looks well-brewed and strong, I naturally throw away the last drops. (Or I sometimes pour the last drops and add hot water to weaken it.) Anyway, I wonder how the last drops taste. Do they have condescended umami? Strong bitterness? Well-branced flavor? Have you tasted just the last drops of tea? I thought I would try them. I will report the result on the next post.