Global Tea Time

I take the medical coding certification exam tomorrow. Since I have a few partially finished posts, and not a lot of time, enjoy some Moroccan mint tea until next week. Okay, it's not actually Moroccan mint in my cup. It's a purple, mint tea blend, but the cups are really from Morocco. It's also really hard to take pictures of really shiny things. Anyway, I'll have a more composed (and informative) post next week.

Japan is one of the major players when it comes to tea. Their tea culture is the second oldest in the world. I wasn't sure how to approach exploring tea in this country because there is so much variety. There are the traditional and modern ways of drinking tea, and in addition, tea is also found in food. First, a little background on the country . Japan consists of a string of islands on the eastern edge of Asia. It is described as mountainous, with live and dormant volcanoes. Japan is known for ancient traditions and technological modernity. The history of Japan is quite lengthy, and the adoption of Western culture along with traditional culture makes it even more complicated. One of my hobbies is actually quite popular in Japan, and reflects the Western influence on the country. Tatting is a method of making a knotted lace by hand. A lot of new patterns and innovative designs are coming out of Japan. I have one book that is a translation from Japanese, and I nearly bought a t...

The concept of gongfu comes from China. I've heard through various resources that the term gongfu refers to learning to do anything well, but over time it has become mainly associated with tea brewing. Most of what I know about gongfu brewing has come from watching videos from Mei Leaf on YouTube. For a long time, I thought that a set would be too expensive to realistically buy, but then I started looking on Amazon... These sets are typically used on a bamboo tray that is made to hold excess water, but those were sold separately. I didn't think it would be too important to have one since other tea ceremony cultures use a bowl to hold leftover water from the brewing process, and place their brewing tools on a towel. I used an inverted bamboo steamer as a stand in for this picture. Now imagine it being rectangle, and sealed at the bottom to hold water. As it turned out, I realized how uneven the height of the slats on the steamer are. I decided to opt for a setup that was a l...

Today we travel to Uzbekistan , and Kyrgyzstan  . These 2 countries are neighbors, and they share tea culture. Uzbekistan This country was established by the USSR in 1924, and declared its independence in 1991. The climate depends on elevation, and the largest part of the population lives in the eastern half of the country around oases. Over half of the population lives in rural areas, and they have a fairly young population.  Kyrgyzstan This country is between Uzbekistan and northern China. Most of its border runs along mountain crests. They have a similar history of Soviet occupation, and also gained their independence in 1991. There are 2 main valleys that run through the country, and the majority of the population lives in the valley near the capitol.  The videos I found about tea were very similar. They serve green tea. When drinking tea in groups, service is made from oldest to youngest. Their tea sets match. They have a decorated pot to make the tea in,...

Today is another tea related food tasting. I finished my class through work on Friday, and now I have a month to study for the certification exam. I'm feeling better about all this since I passed the practice exam that we were given in class. There may be a few more short posts between now and then, but I'm getting closer to life as usual. If you have seen anything about food in Japan, you've probably seen Pocky sticks. These little treats are easily available in the states, I mean even Wal Mart sells in the Asian food aisle. Of course, since these are from Japan, they come in matcha flavor (along with chocolate, strawberry, cookies and cream, and almond crunch. I know that there are more flavors beyond that, but those are the ones I see locally.) As you can see, they come in a sealed bag inside of the box. Here they are! I didn't count precisely, but I think there are just over 30 of these to a box. When you open the package, you can smell the matcha. The flav...

As my 12 week coding class plods on, I continue to look for some easy tea recipes to try. Since Asia is where tea originated, they seem to do a lot more with it than people in my part of the world. I was trying to figure out if people in Japan made iced matcha, and I came across this video. Since I had all of the ingredients, I decided to give it a try.  Per the video, they used a gram of agar powder, 300 mL of water, and 0.6 grams of matcha powder (I used a teaspoon because there was no way that I would be able to weigh that amount of matcha).  I have a couple of options. The only powdered agar I can find already has sugar in it. I don't remember if it was in a video, or something I read, but adding sugar to a matcha drink seems to be frowned on, so my other option is to use the agar stick. I tried using this for something before, and it didn't work out the best, so we'll see how I do this time.  As it turns out, my digital food sc...

I've seen many references to matcha ice cream in Japan. There was an article in the last few months about a premium matcha ice cream that was selling for about $17 a scoop. I don't have the budget to get to Japan, and I'm certainly not paying $17 for some ice cream, so it's improv time. I can almost hear my sister groaning. Not only did I buy boring old vanilla ice cream, but I'm going to mix tea into it! While my sister does like ice cream, she likes the more complex flavors (okay, I do too, but I didn't really think chocolate chip cookie dough would pair well with tea). Back when we were kids, we would have plan vanilla ice cream, and we would resort to mixing chocolate quick into it to add some flavor. I'm resorting to that same technique again, but the powder is a little different in color and flavor this time... I added about half a teaspoon of matcha powder to my ice cream. It didn't look very impressive sprinkled on top, so I decide...