Source: Ippodo-tea.co.jp
All good Matcha will clump together in the bottom of the bowl if it is not broken up somehow prior to adding the water and whisking it.
Continue reading Sifting the Matcha. How not to have clumps in your Matcha.
Monthly Archives: January 2016
Organic Yame Matcha
Organic Yame Matcha from Yuuki-cha in Japan
From the cultivators Okuyutaka & Yabukita comes 1st harvest Matcha out of Yame, Fukuoka, Japan. Here is what their website says about Organic Yame Matcha:
“If you’re looking for a great tasting affordable matcha, or an alternative to matcha from Kyoto, look no further! This organic matcha green tea from Yame provides a tasty, vibrant, and aromatic bowl of matcha! Okuyutaka, the main breed used in this organic matcha, produces the creamy mellow mouth-feel and excellent appetising aromas, while the addition of Yabukita breed adds a touch of richness. A wonderful organic matcha cultivated on the one farm in Yame, Fukuoka, Japan!”
Aoyama-No-Shiro
Aoyama-no-shiro in the 40 g box
Not for all the tea in…
After I made a resolution to drink Matcha every day I tried countless brands from every imaginable Google search. If you’re reading this, you have likely noticed the 18,500,000 results that pop up when searching for what brand of Matcha to try. Almost all of them are crap. I’m not kidding you. It’s like anything else that becomes a panacea, all the profiteering sharks start swimming closer and closer to the top of the search engine. What you will find are people with no true interest in tea, acting as middle men for the cheapest place that they can buy Matcha from, repackaging what they could scavenge onto a slick webpage with false reviews. You end up paying upwards of $40-120 for a 29 gram bag of olive drab garbage. You then conclude that you hate Matcha.
…First you heat the water
We recently have been talking about getting one of those automatic hot water dispensers that people have on the side of their kitchen sinks that always has piping hot water ready for you at any time. These things are stupid expensive. Really. I have made some questionable purchases over the years, but I was thinking long and hard at justifying this purchase. The thought was that we all tend to use hot water for one beverage or another in the house and remembering to refill the tea kettle and clean up the inevitable spillage that happens on the stovetop was often getting overlooked.
Tea is nothing but this:
Tea is nought but this: first you heat the water, then you make the tea. Then you drink it properly. That is all you need to know.
–Sen No Rikyu
This is a deceptively simple quote by Japanese tea master Rikyu (1522 – April 21, 1591.) To the casual reader, one that is not immersed in the traditional practice of Chanoyu (the Japanese way of tea), this poem seems almost commonplace or obvious. I see it as both, but also as a masterful tincture of the very essence of having tea be a guide for a better life.
.茶の煙柳と共にそよぐ也
.茶の煙柳と共にそよぐ也
cha no kemuri yanagi to tomo ni soyogu nari
the tea smoke
and the willow
together trembling
