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.

Continue reading Not for all the tea in… →

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.

Continue reading …First you heat the water →

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.

Continue reading Tea is nothing but this: →

.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

After over one year of daily consumption of around 10 cups of green tea, my next step is to make available information I have put together for my upcoming class.  My hope is that this site will evolve into not only a reference for my patients but become an online source for anyone who has a passion for tea.

I plan to include unbiased reviews of different teas that I have tried, daily quotes about tea, articles about the history and practice of tea, as well as research on the health benefits of it’s daily consumption.

I also  hope that readers will share their own stories and experiences about tea.