Japan

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 tatting book written in Japanese because they had diagrams with Arabic numbers on them that I could follow. Since I already have a lot of tatting books, I decided to get some bobbin lace making books because they are harder to find, but I digress.

I also had a chance to sample some of their culture thanks to the (somewhat) local botanical garden. Meet some very well watered bonsai trees.

I tried to capture some of the architecture of the garden in the background. Imagine a peaceful, relaxing atmosphere. In reality, we had several bouts of torrential rains that morning. When it finally stopped raining, and I could go outside, it was cold (and it was the middle of June)!

At least I did get a chance to walk outside and see them. While it was raining, I would occasionally stop at the windows looking out over these trees and gaze at them hoping I could get outside sometime.

After almost 2 hours of rain, the last band of the storm clouds had passed, and I got to visit the trees. I was amused by their plaques saying how long they had been in training. Apparently some of the trees are older than I am.

I had to take a close up of this one because the trunk was so interesting. There are faces and mythical creatures hiding in the wood, you just have to stop and look for them. 

Unfortunately I didn't get pictures of all of the trees. There was a special event luncheon going on, and there were a lot of people milling around. It was also really overcast and cold out, so I didn't want to spend a lot of time lingering to see how I could set up some neat shots of the trees with a decent background. Sure, the divider tables help, but they have so many more dimensions than their straight on appearance.







In general, many resources say that tea culture is about 1000 years old in Japan. According to one source, tea was introduced to Japan in the 8th century. At first, it was the beverage of Buddhist monks and nobles, and was  a spiritual activity. As time went on, and more tea was grown, it became the drink of warriors and aristocrats. I burst out laughing when I read that tea became associated with wild parties and tea drinking contests. You have to admit that it would be easier staying up late during those parties.

Tea houses, areas of quiet meditation to drink tea, were developed in response to the wild parties, and tea ceremonies were developed to deepen the meditative experience of drinking tea. Sencha tea arose in reaction to the strict tea ceremonies as a more casual way to drink tea with friends. A sort of ceremony for sencha tea developed, but it was more about the brewing and enjoyment of tea.

Tea drinking is still popular in Japan, but less formal on a day to day basis. The interesting thing about researching this is that I'm not sure how many people in Japan actually brew their own tea versus buying a pre-made tea. YouTube is full of videos of people trying out vending machines, and marveling at the selection of food and drink at 7-11. Bottled tea is very popular from what I can tell. While it can be purchased plain, it is very popular to get flavored tea. A lot if the flavors are only available for a limited time. In addition to chilled bottles and cans of tea, apparently there are also warming cases that serve hot tea in cans (I'm really curious as to how sealed, hot containers of tea work. Then again, I don't know how hot they are - it appears that they are still cool enough to touch).

All the resources I found about brewing tea in Japan state that you should use plain tea, not flavored. I'm going to break the brewing rules, and use a flavored tea. I'll just pretend that it came in a bottle from the local store, rather than admit that I brewed it myself. The main reason for that, is when I was choosing tea, I really wanted to try the cherry flavored green tea. I've never had cherry flavored tea before. The description also stated that the blend was developed to honor the cherry blossom festival in Japan. I'm such a sucker for tea...

So, this is cherry sencha tea. I thought that it would have bits of dried cherries, or something like that in the tea. It turns out that it has a synthetic cherry flavor added. I guess that's what I get for not sniffing the tea before I got it. It did still smell good, though.

So, I followed the brewing instructions.

Look how pretty the leaves are when they are brewing.

First I tried it hot.

The cherry flavor was there, but a little subtle. Then, I thought that this would make a really good iced tea.

So, I brewed a bit more, strained out the leaves, and put it in the fridge to cool overnight. As "luck" would have it, it is really hot here, so cold tea actually sounds good!

It's so hot outside, I even put a cup in the fridge to chill before drinking it. I must say, this makes a fantastic iced tea. The cherry flavor comes through much better when it is chilled, and even though it is an artificial cherry flavor, it isn't a medicinal cherry flavor. It also seems that reviews of Japanese food hint toward wide use of artificial flavors, so I have a feeling this tea is probably pretty authentic.




I also decided to try a more traditional tea. Soooo, the matcha powder is making another appearance. While this is fixed with special equipment for tea ceremonies, I did a little improvisation. I haven't been able to convince myself to buy a bamboo whisk, or the special matcha scooping spoon. Regular measuring spoons and a wire whisk work just fine for preparation. I've actually heard that a battery operated drink frother works best for people who are inexperienced with making matcha, but I don't have one of those either.

I used a half teaspoon of matcha powder. I sifted it through one of my tea strainers. Sifting it is supposed to help cut down on lumps in the finished product, and I think it really does work. Then I scooped in a teaspoon of hot water (180-190 degrees Fahrenheit), and whisked it into a thick paste. then I added some more water and whisked furiously. 

The bubbles are supposed to be of uniform size, and evenly cover the surface of the tea. It still tasted good, regardless of the appearance. Thus concludes our tour of modern and traditional Japanese tea.