Does Material of Teapot Affect the Taste?

Yakishime pot can brew better tasting tea

Yakishime is a type of ceramic. It is baked in a high temperature without any glaze. Tokoname and Banko wares are best example of this product. I have written “Tokoname teapot can brew more delicious tea than teapots made of other materials” in a past entry. Lately, I found an interesting site that explains about the theory. It’s the site of FOOD ANALYSIS TECHNOLOGY CENTER (http://www.mac.or.jp/mail/100401/02.shtml) and they mention three causes. I’ll introduce the summary in the next paragraph.

Temprature, Iron and Texture

When comparing the four materials; yakishime, porcelain, glass and aluminum, yakishime has the most modest thermal conductivity. When brewing, it keeps the water warm to encourage extracting substances more.  
The clay often used on Tokoname or Banko ware is rich in iron. The iron adsorbs the bitter substance, catechin. It is considered that polyphenols like catechin has a functional group and they are easy to compound with the teapot’s surface with iron.
In the physical aspect, unglazed clay has some texture comparing with the smooth surface of glass and aluminum. The clay has a greater physical absorption of the bitter taste.

Still Wondering

So, the article says that yakishime pots encourages extracting more substances and adsorb bitter taste. That is the reason that it can brew good tasting tea. However, I find some contradictions between this theory and the data from my previous post. I still don’t understand all functions completely. I just wanted to introduce one of opinions regarding teapots’ material that I found. Anyway, both the theory and the data saying that yakishime teapots has advantage. Actually many people experienced it in the survey. This time, I’ll test it myself how effective it is.

The conditions:
Fine Sencha: 2g
Water: 27ml 70C
Time: 1min
Vessel: Left; Yakishime, Right; Porcelain

Potential of Yakishime and Porcelain

I was absolutely appalled by the result. The difference was obvious. The tea brewed in yakishime had a rounded fullfilling flavor with rich umami. The tea with porcelain was washy. I could not find the rich umami that I found in yakishime. The bitter taste exceeded the umami. The result might differ depending on the conditions, but I found that the difference in this test is almost like I was trying the teas from two different grades.　I knew it as a knowledge that yakishime can brew better tasting tea. Also, I’ve been actually using both yakishime and porcelain pots at home so I’ve been vaguely conscious of it. However, I’ve never compered them in the same condition at the same time. I was not aware it has such difference. I can definitely recommend yakishime pots for people who enjoy premium green tea. A yakishime pot can make your tea one rank better.

Does a flat teapot can brew better tasting tea?

Why Flat Shape Is Good

You might have heard different opinions regarding the ideal shape of a teapot. Here is one of the opinions. Some people says that flat pots can brew good tasting tea. I’ve heard two reasons about it. First, people tend to put a lot of tea leaves in a flat pot because it has a large bottom and it makes the leaves inside look few. It’s a visual deception, so people put more leaves than usual and it helps to make delicious tea. The other reason is that the leaves can be laid widespread, not piled up like in an ordinary pot. So, when it is brewed, the leaves can smoothly absorb water with less stress. If you measure the leaves, the first reason won’t matter. I wonder how much impact to the taste the second reason has.

Experiment

I did a test in brewing gyokuro with a flat and tall vessels (Tea: 3g, Water: 15ml, Time: 2 min). I tried several rounds of tests. As a result, I found a slight advantage in taste on the flat vessel even though the difference is not significant. The tea brewed in the flat one has mellow and rich flavor. The one in the tall vessel was dull with washy body. I also found a slightly rough and bitter flavor. But again, it has very little difference. 

Unexpected Outcome

In the series of tests, I found an interesting result. The tea within the flat vessel has slightly more amount of extract. This is also a very slight difference. But why? If a flat pot helps with smooth absorption of water, it should have had less extract. This happening doesn’t support the aforementioned idea. Only the assumption that I have is that when you pour tea with the flat pot, less water might remain in between the leaves. If so, it has a good impact on the taste of the second or later brewing. I could not come up with a convincing explanation on this issue. I’m sorry.

Try Flat

To conclude this topic, I have to say that the advantage is not that significant. It could be within accidental error. In gyokuro brewing, slight difference of conditions can affect tastes. Quality and amount of ingredients, water temperature and brewing time has much more impact. If you want to enjoy tea casually, you don’t have to be picky about the shape of the pot. 
However, it is also fact that I kind of find the tea brewed in the flat vessel tastes slightly better than the other one. I can’t explain the reason scientifically. A flat pot might encourage smooth draining. Water calmly flows off through the leaves and it doesn’t tumble the leaves around. It is good to brew tea slowly and carefully without damaging fine leaves. I could not clear everything up regarding this topic, please try it yourself to see how you like it. For people who are fond of gyokuro and premium sencha, the flat pot is definitely worth a try.

Matcha-iri Sencha

A trend

There is a tea that I am curious about lately. It’s matcha-iri sencha, or matcha-blended sencha. Suntory has made a change on their leading product, bottled sencha, Iyemon. They added matcha to flavor their Iyemon. Not only bottled green tea, but also I often see the leaves in stores lately. It seems that matcha-iri sencha is gaining popularity in the market.

Matcha-blended sencha

The dry leaves look like sencha but it has bright green powder on their surface. It is sencha powdered with matcha. You can brew Matcha-iri sencha just like regular sencha. You put the tea and hot water in a teapot and steep it for a minute. The greatest charm of this tea is its fulfilling flavor which is refreshingly bitter taste harmonized with the luscious flavor of matcha. It’s good for the people who love rich greenish flavor. If I dare say the disadvantage, the tea loses its full flavor on the next brewing. Matcha flavor gets extracted mostly on the first brewing.


Left: Matcha-iri sencha, Right: Sencha

State

It seems that relatively cheap sencha is used for it. I think that it’s a successful method to enhance its quality by redeeming lack of its flavor or covering its off-flavor. On the other hand, for high-grade senchas, there is no need to add any flavor. Adding matcha is wasteful. Matcha-iri sencha is usually reasonably priced and you can get it everywhere. It can be enjoyed at meals and tea time.

You don’t have to buy matcha-iri sencha

On TV commercials and the internet, Suntory doesn’t only promote the bottled tea but also introduce a method, putting macha into the teapot when you prepare sencha. They try to appeal that adding matcha into sencha makes it more delicious. They promote it as if it’s something new but not so much for tea lovers like me who is already familiar with matcha-iri sencha, haha. Anyway, you don’t have to buy it. If you want to try it, just mix your sencha leaves and matcha powder before brewing. 

This is about 0.3g of matcha

Recipe

I tried the mixture that Suntory introduces. However, it was too strong for me. My recipe for two servings will be the following.
  Sencha: 2 teaspoons (4g)
  Matcha: 1/8 teaspoon (0.2g)
  Water: 2 cups (180ml) 70degC
  Brewing: 1min
Put the sencha and matcha into the pot. Add hot water and leave it for one minute. Serve into the cups.

Experiment on pre-mixing

Suntory advises on their instruction to mix sencha leaves and matcha powder well in an extra cup. It is better the leaves to get matcha evenly on their surfaces. They doesn’t say the reason why but I guess this helps to brew better tasting tea. I started wonder how effective this is. It is time for me to experiment myself. I prepared two teas. One is just putting matcha on senccha, “A”. The other one is mixed well, “B”. I brewed them in the same condition. What do you think?

The brewed teas are in the following picture. Tea B is richer in color. Probably the matcha get out into the brewed tea more. What surprised me was that, despite the color, I didn’t find significant difference in their taste. Can you believe it? It tasted almost the same.

I speculate that it’s because I used sifted matcha, so on either tea I could get good flavor. This tip might be effective when using unsifted matcha. Pre-mixing sencha and matcha might help to reduce the lumps of matcha and will have similar effect as sifting. Anyway, Matcha-iri sencha is different from just brewing sencha strongly. By adding matcha, the flavor gets more complex and profound. If you want to spice up your sencha, give it a try.

 

Suntory webpage (Japanese) : http://www.suntory.co.jp/softdrink/iyemon/portal/irekata.html

Cold Gyokuro, A Substitute to Cold Sencha

 

Cold tea at the office

I want cold tea when I work at my desk in this season. It can be a cold mugicha (barley tea) or sencha. The other day, I wanted cold sencha but I didn’t have any sencha on my shelf. What only I had was gyokuro. This situation tantalizes my curiosity about tea. Can you brew a “sencha-tic” cold tea out of gyokuro?

 

I tried making sencha-tic cold tea with gyokuro

Gyokuro has mild bitterness compared to sencha. If you brew tea with high-temperature water, you can extract bitterness. I put a heap teaspoon of gyokuro into a teapot and added boiling water. A few minutes later, I poured the hot tea into a glass filled with ice. It was very easy to make, and the taste was excellent. It was much better than I expected. It had good amount of bitterness like sencha and at the same time, it provides abundant pleasing sweet flavor of gyokuro’s umami. It was very refreshing.

Trial and error for three weeks

I loved the sencha-tic cold tea with gyokuro, but the bitter flavor exceeds my expectation a little. So, I made it every day to adjust and improve the recipe to my taste. I tried many different mixtures with boiling water, but it was difficult to make the tea without strong bitterness. What I got after three weeks of trial and error is the recipe as follows;
- Water: 125ml/75C (4.4oz/167F)
- Gyokuro: 5g
- Brewing: 1min
- Ice: full in a glass
You pour 125ml of boiling water into an extra cup to cool it down. You leave it as you add tea leaves in your teapot and ice cubes in your glass. Then, the temperature will get around 75C and pour it into the pot. You brew the tea for 1min and pour the hot tea into the glass with ice. That’s it.
This tea is not strong and it has the delightful umami flavor of gyokuro. You can enjoy the gentle sweetness with a hint of fresh green note. 

The second brew

Right after the first brew, I put some ice cubes and cold water directly into the teapot. I leave the pot in the refrigerator for one or two hours while I enjoy the first glass. The second brew is surprisingly delicious with mild bitter flavor. There are some benefits in brewing with iced water. First, it’s very easy to prepare. Slow extraction will be good for tea at work, and the next brew is ready about the time when I want it. From the hygiene perspective, you don’t have to worry leaving the pot with used tea leaves in a hot room on a summer day and using it a few hours later for the second. The most significant advantage is about its taste. Brewing in cold temperature doesn’t extract bitter flavor so the taste gets extremely mellow and sweet.

As I did a series of test, I realized the great potential of gyokuro and I started to think not only I could brew a sencha-tic tea but one with a mellow sweet taste as well.

Evolution of Bottled green tea

Decaf culture
There was a thing that surprised me when I went to the United States about one and a half decades ago. At coffee shops, some people were ordering a kind of coffee that I’ve never heard of. It was decaffeinated coffee, which was not common at all in Japan. It was difficult to understand the existence of decaf coffee for the person like me, who can enjoy thick matcha. Today, I checked the Starbucks Japan website. I still couldn’t find decaf coffee on their beverage menu. (Some people say that you can get a decaf at Starbucks even if it’s not on the menu.) I have to say that our decaf culture is still a few decades behind than American’s. Even if I say so, it’s also a fact that the decaf drinks are finally getting attention in Japan these days. Kirin released a new product, Decaf Namacha. It’s the world first bottled decaf green tea.



Decaf Namacha

Added Value Tea
The market of bottled green tea in Japan is quite competitive nowadays. Many products come in the market and fade away. Makers try to launch new products with added value like the decaf green tea. Here are two more examples. One is Shokumotsusenni-ga-oishikutoreru-ocha or Green tea with fiber from Itoen. You can intake 7.5g of dietary fiber out of a 500ml bottle. Another example is Iyemon Tokucha from Suntory. It is a green tea that takes off your body fat. This tea contains an amount of quercetin glycoside, which is equivalent to the amount that can be found in three onions. It is a kind of polyphenol that helps to break down fat. We may be a primitive nation regarding decaf coffee but we might be the most advanced country regarding bottled green tea. If you have a chance to visit Japan, it’s fun to try some of our latest green teas!



Green tea with fiber



Iyemon Tokucha

Review of the Decaf Namacha
The original Namacha is one of my favorite brands. Its flavor is very mellow and aromatic. It has less bitterness than other brands so you can guzzle it when you are thirsty. Now, let’s try the decaf Namacha. At first, I noticed that it smells really good. It smells sweet like freshly-picked young tea leaf, which I can only find in high-grade sencha. Its taste also has the same note. It’s not bitter at all and the mellow sweet flavor of young leaf fills your mouth. This is totally different from other brands, which have bitterness in some degree for refreshing taste. Namacha preserves mellowness but it could be too mellow for some people. One disappointing thing is that a flavoring ingredient is added, but I really like this tea after all.


Following sites are all in Japanese.

Kirin Decaf Namacha:
http://www.kirin.co.jp/products/softdrink/namacya/about/yasashisa/index.html

Itoen, Green tea with fiber:
http://www.itoen.co.jp/news/detail/id=23209

Suntory, Iyemon Tokucha:
http://www.suntory.co.jp/softdrink/iyemon/tokucha/index.html

How not to fail on shopping tea online

What is your criterion when you buy tea online?
You might not know if the tea is good even though you read the description. Shops usually write nice things about their tea. You might have wondered if this is worth its price or if it is really delicious. You cannot smell or taste it online. What should you consider when choosing tea? I think that the pictures of tea on the site is very important. A picture is worth a thousand words. You can’t tell everything from pictures but you can tell a lot. Here is a quiz. If you find two teas at the same price, which tea will you buy, A or B? One has better quality than the other. 

Check color and shape
This quiz is not difficult for people who is familiar to Japanese tea. If you don’t know which tea is good, you are lucky: today I’m writing this for you. The answer is “B”. Actually they are not the same price. A is 2,000yen/100g and B is 4,000yen. 
First, check the color and texture. Good tea has profound hue of dark green and luster on surface. It is not good to have yellowish, reddish tone or dried texture. 
Next, let’s look at the shape. Good tea consists even shaped pieces. They are like thin needles. Young soft leaves can become good tasting tea. They are elastic and can be rolled up nicely. While it is difficult to tightly roll stiff leaves and they can break during production. That is why pieces gets more uneven and rough with low grade tea. You will find whitish stems, distorted and small broken pieces.
Now, let’s take a look the pictures once again. Doesn’t “B” look better now?

Shop wisely
I hope that knowing this mere fact makes a lot of difference in your future shopping. The tea A and B in the photos are both gyokuro, but this rule works for kabusecha and sencha (not deep-steamed sencha), too.   Look for tea with even pieces of tightly-rolled deep-green leaves and this is the tip for less risk of failing on shopping for tea.

Wine bottle??

Have you ever won a prize? I never have. But this summer, I got a bottle as a prize for my magazine entry! Yeah! Do you want to know what this bottle is for? It is a filter-in bottle to prepare cold green tea!

This bottle has a tea strainer at the inside of the bottleneck. Put 15 grams (0.5oz) of tea leaves and 750ml (26oz) of cold water in the bottle and just leave it in the refrigerator for 3-6 hours. You can prepare cold sencha very easily and it’s quite practical!! If you want to do it with an ordinary teapot with handle and spout, it’s difficult because the pot will be unstable and obstruct entry in the fridge. This is quite a useful item for people like me who drink cold green tea regularly.

It looks like a wine bottle. The design is simple and it looks good on the table. It might make you feel like enjoying the tea in a wine glass. I actually tried it, hahaha. 

Experiments don’t go well sometimes

I started to think that my cold sencha recipe is not very practical as I prepare the tea. It takes time and consume a lot of tea leaf, and I wanted improve them. So, every time when I prepare the tea at home or lately, in the office, I tried different mixtures.

This is the original recipe that I’m talking about.
  Tea leaves: 12g
  Lukewarm water: 50C/122F, 50ml/1.8oz
  Cold water: 200ml/7oz
  Ice cube: adequate dose

  Brew it with lukewarm water for 10sec to unfold the leaves and to help faster infusing. Then add cold water with ice and brew it for 10 minutes.

Sometimes, I casually do experiments whenever I’m curious about tea. But, I notice that the conditions are not totally consistent through my tests or I get different results from what I expected. Then I realize how stupid I am, hahaha. This is the fourth revision of this article. This time again, even after doing many tests, I could not get satisfying results or reach an organized idea. Today, I just write about the two points that I learned from the series of tests I did.



First point is that you can shorten the brewing time to 5 minutes and cut down the leaf to 9 grams. Of course, the tea lose the richness that original recipe can offer but this mixture can still bring the full-sweetness that you can’t get with ordinary preparation. The tea is extremely mellow.

 

	Original	New
Tea leaves	12g	9g
Pre-brewing	Brew it 10sec with 50ml of lukewarm water (50C)
Main-brewing	200ml of Iced water
	10 min	5 min
Flavor	Rich	mellow

The second point is that my cold sencha recipe is not always beneficial. When I tried my recipe with kabusecha, I found a significant difference from ordinary preparation. It is definitely worth to try. But, when I tried it with deep-steamed sencha, I didn’t find obvious advantage using my recipe. The tastes are different but the tea brewed in ordinary way is also excellent, which is bitter and refreshing. There might not be big advantage using the recipe that need a lot of time and leaves. My recipe is a method to bring out abundant umami, so it works better with tea that has a lot of umami, such as kabusecha and fine sencha.

If you are suffering from hot summer, try cold sencha!

My original recipe that I’m referring in this post:
http://everyonestea.blogspot.jp/2012/06/exquisite-cold-sencha.html

Common way of preparing iced sencha is something like this:
http://everyonestea.blogspot.jp/2010/06/iced-sencha-my-recipe-of-trial-and.html

Ocobo, a café at Kakuozan

There is a café called Ocobo at Kakuozan, Nagoya, which I’ve always wanted to visit. The other day, I finally had the chance. When I got there a few customers are calmly enjoying their tea. The cafe only has 10 seats at the bar. A man was preparing tea and he seemed to be the only person working there at that time. He is probably the master of the café. He told me to wait a little, while I was watching the confectioneries in the showcase for to-go. The master has been trained at a confectionery shop in Kyoto, so I wanted to try their sweets. While waiting, I looked around. On the shelves, there are cute cups and small teapots are displayed. I heard nice sound of the master whisking matcha. On the wall, there are some magazines and books with picture of a temple in Kyoto. I noticed that one of the customer was reading the magazine from the wall. The café was filled with a tranquility. 

In the meantime, the master finished serving the tea and came to me. I was about buying some sweets to take them home, but at the last moment, I changed my mind and decided to have tea and the sweets there. I seated at the bar and had a sencha tea set. 

 

The sencha was very clear and refreshing. It didn’t have much bitterness and any unpleasant flavor. The aroma like roasted chestnuts filled in my mouth. It was quite nice. The sweets that I tried was a little different from what I’ve expected.　But, good ingredients seemed to be used.   

I definitely want to come back when I will be around Kakuozan. I want to try some other of their tea and sweets. Their matcha sorbet sounds good.

Ocobo (Japanese) >>> http://ocobo-wagashi.com/

Preparing eight servings of tea with an ordinary teapot

If you only have a regular size teapot and if you have many guests, how do you serve tea? 

It’s good to have a large teapot if you occasionally need to serve tea for many people.  Otherwise, for common households, you can prepare the tea only a few servings.  I recommend you to choose the right sized teapot by considering your main use.  For special occasions, try the method that I introduce today.  You can serve the double number of serving with your teapot.

The method is adding and blending the first and the second brewing, which allows you to serve twice of the amount at once.  You can achieve the same quality for all the servings.

 

What you need (8 servings)

Tea leaf: sencha 8 grams (2g per serving, Prepare your tea for 4 servings which is enough for the teapot and you have to do it twice to prepare 8 tea cups all in all.)
Hot water: 560ml (8 servings)
Teapot: 280ml (make it twice to make 8 servings)
Pitcher: 560ml or larger
Tea cup: 8 pcs

 

 

 

1. Put 280ml boiled water each into the teapot and the pitcher

 

2. Transfer all of the water from the teapot into the first four cups for the first brewing. Have the water in 80C/176F

 

3. Put the tea leaves into the teapot and pour the hot water into the pot from the four cups

 

4. Leave the pot for one minute. While waiting, transfer the water from the pitcher into the other four cups for the second brewing.



5. When the time comes, pour the tea from the teapot into the pitcher



6. Transfer the hot water from the four cups and wait for about 30 seconds

7. Pour the tea from the teapot into the pitcher containing the first brew

 

8. Stir the tea lightly and then serve into the eight cups!!

The idea is that you mix the first and second brew and double the serving amount of your teapot.  You may do the procedures in some different orders.  It is fine as far as you can serve the same quality tea for every cup.  

How to obtain 80C/176F water

You do not use boiling water for preparing most of Japanese tea.  Around 80C/176F is a good temperature.  Because, too hot water extracts a lot of bitterness and you don’t get the best flavor of green tea.  It is said that you should obtain 80C/176F water by cooling down the water once it has kept boiling.  Why is that?

Cooling down the boiled water takes time and it’s a kind of like troublesome.  You might want to skip that.  Can you just add cold water?  Or can you remove the kettle from the stove before boiling?  Some of you might have such wonders.

I think of two reasons for the cooling down water issue.  The first reason is that you can take away chlorine odors from tap water by boiling it.  (Check out the related entry >>> “Canyou take off chlorine smell for tap water by boiling?”)  In Japan, many people use tap water for tea, so this is quite effective for them.  I understand that some people say “I’m fine because I use bottled water” or “I have a water purifier”.  The other reason will work for those people, too.  You cool down the water by pouring it into the teapot and cups, which also makes them warm up.  So, you will always have the teapot in a stable temperature.  It helps you prepare your tea with a steady flavor always.  The warmed up teapot and cups also help the tea not to get too lukewarm during the preparation.  The served tea is still hot and nice.  I believe that these aspects can be quite beneficial for your tea.

 

Making 80C/176F water is not that difficult.  It’s easy!  Let take a look.

 



1.Pour the boiled water into the cups

This helps measuring the right amount of water.
Do not leave it for a long time at this point; the cups might get too hot to hold.

 

2.Pour the water from the cups into the teapot

Then wait for several seconds. Adjust this time by the conditions and for the result you want.

3.Pour the water back from the pot to the cups

That’s it!

 

 



The water in the cups is now about 80C/176F.
The empty pot is ready for you to put tea leaves on!

 

The result will differ by conditions such as the room temperature, servings, and the size and material of pot and cups.  If you want to have higher temperature, you can skip the first step and directly pour the boiled water into the pot.  If you want much lower temperature water, you can add another step using another vessel, yuzamashi or water cooler.  I believe that how to make 80C/176F water is crucial to prepare non-chlorine and steady flavor of tea, and helps to serve the exquisite tea in the best temperature!   It is not that difficult as you think.  Give it a try!


Check out my past entries for more information

- Can you take off chlorine smell for tapwater by boiling?
- Well boiled water makes delicious green tea

 

Sencha review, Asamiya Asatsuyu

I’ve loved the super premium senchas that I’ve tried on the trip to Asamiya.  They were impressive.  So, I bought reasonable one to see how the average Asamiya tea taste like.  The sencha I got is Asatsuyu breed, which was 1000yen or 1200yen for 100grams.

The dried leaf doesn’t have the luster that premium ones have, but it still have a fine profound color and looks quite good considering the price.  I prepared this tea with my standard recipe.  The water color was not perfectly beautiful because it was slightly reddish.  The first impression of this Asatsuyu was weak.  The bitterness stood out in my mouth and I was not able to find satisfying umami there.  Comprehensively, I felt short on the flavor.  But, I didn’t miss the potential, the mild creamy sweetness behind the bitterness.

I tried another way of brewing to bring out the charm of this tea.  It is the method to make premium tea using plenty of the leaf (4g) and steeping it with a small amount (50ml/1.7oz) of lukewarm water (60C/140F).  Two minutes after, I've tried to check the aroma on the teapot.  It was filled with a pleasing sweet aroma like corn.   My assumption was correct!  The tea came out superb.  It still has earthy bitterness but also the rounded flavor of umami filled into my mouth.  It was very tasty.  As the super premium Asamiya teas I’ve tried, I find the bitterness delicious with this reasonable tea as well.  This is not as crisp or clear as the premium ones, but still its bitterness are very flavorful when it is blended with the corn like sweetness. 

I can say that this tea is quite distinctive so some people may not like it but some may love it.  I, personally very much like the Asamiya tea.

How barbaric I am

We, Japanese usually take a bath at night.  On these cold days, I often feel like having a cup of hot green tea after the bath.  Just one cup.  Cooling water when preparing or cleaning the teapot after use are not a big deal usually, but at this relaxing time, I find them troublesome just for one cup. 

I don’t want to go through the proper steps for preparing, but I want to drink tea.  I know this is something not to be proud of … but I found out other alternative!! 

I just put a few tea leaves directly into a glass and add boiling water.  That’s it.  The amount of leaves is only one third of regular recipe.  If you gently take sips from the surface, you won’t get much leaves coming into your mouth.  The taste is not perfect but it’s still fine.  Of course at the end, when you drink the bottom part, the tea gets stronger and a few leaves might slip into your mouth.  But, it’s okay and I’m happy as far as I can have a cup of tea after bath.

I think I should be ashamed of myself as a qualified Japanese Tea Adviser to have tea with this barbaric preparation.  I know you may want to advice me to use a tea strainer if I don’t want to wash the teapot.  But, I don’t even want to wash the strainer either.  I’m genius on thinking excuses, hahaha.  

Tea production region for a good quality tea

Which region in Japan do you think produces quality tea?  Uji or Waduka in Kyoto?  Yame in Fukuoka?  Have you ever heard of Asamiya in Siga?  Tea lovers are well aware that Asamiya produces excellent quality tea.  Sad to say, that I haven’t heard of it. 

I finally had a chance to visit an Asamiya tea farm and a tea shop in Siga when I attending a tea studying tour.  It is said that mountain regions are ideal for producing tea because of its big difference in the temperature between day and night.  The farmer showed us around his field. The well known notion made sense when I finally got to observe the actual field.  Look at the picture above and notice the tea plants are grown on the slopes.  To get to this place, you drive up the narrow winding road.  Large machineries used in the regular farms are useless here.  Farmers need much effort in taking care of growing and harvesting manually.  Why do they make tea in such hard places?  Simply, for the quality of the tea! 

According the farmer, when buying Asamiya tea, you need to be careful of imitations.  Asamiya is not a large production region, so their tea is distributed only to a few limited channels.  The famous tea shop in Kyoto, Ippodo also uses authentic Asamiya tea. 

During the study tour, we were offered to try the Asamiya tea at the farm, which was the super-premium tea that had won a prize in a contest.  It was regular-steamed sencha with a great aroma.  Its’ water was slightly red, which is considered not good for sencha.   However the taste was incredible!!  I was drawn to the distinctive and amorous umami with a nutty note.  The most surprising thing was that although this tea definitely has bitterness, the wooden like aroma made it flavorful, not astringent at all.  Would you believe that you find the bitterness tasty?  The distinctive umami and tasty bitterness merge to create a profound flavor that registers a prominent impression on your palate.  I got another taste of Asamiya at the tea shop.  It was also premium tea with the same bitterness and luscious flavor.  I really fell in love with Asamiya tea so I wanted to introduce in this blog.

Unfortunately, the two Asamiya teas that I tried were quite expensive; I can’t afford the pleasure of always drinking them. I wonder if regular-quality Asamiya has the similar flavor.  If you have tried Asamiya tea, tell me, how do you like it?