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Green teas provide various benefits for us and improve the quality of our life! To buy fine teas in less expensive price is a common demand all over the world. I have solutions for you. In Shizuoka, we can get … Continue reading
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In Shizuoka, teas are so familiar to people that high school students study teas-related products and tea industry based on their curiosity. Besides local banks support their research activities. On 18th Feb., Shimada Shinkin Bank held the annual conference to … Continue reading
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Lately, cold days and warm days come alternately. Tinge around tea plantations tinging the doorbell of spring as follows. Japanese plums “Ume” around tea plantations. Beyond the plums, tea farmers were going to their own tea plantations. In the winter … Continue reading
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On the previous day of Valentine day, men and women expressed their favor and thanks by various manners such as beautiful flowers, sweet chocolates etc., each other. Of course, tea is one of the best expressions of our favor or … Continue reading
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On the way back to the office or my home, nice scenes come into my view in night times. I’d like to show such nice scenes for you. Creeping night on the tea plantation. The moon on the top of … Continue reading
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The owner of Mukasa-En, MUKASA Yasuyuki, is one of the most prominent tea farmers in Japan. His technique of tea cultivation and production is so sophisticated that tea farmers visit him to study his skills from many areas of Japan. … Continue reading
Highly-motivative farmers organize and hold farmers’ market every weekend in front of UNU (United Nation University).
In this market, Moriki farm will participate and sell their teas and related products.
Young tea farmer, Moriki Kazuya, has a great passion for tea cultivation, production, and making people enjoy teas.
We will enjoy shopping in his booth due to his funny personality and the flair of his products. The cute and elegant design of his products are exhibited in the webpage of Moriki farm.(Unfortunately described in Japanese only)
He and his father belong to the tea production cooperative of Yamaha-Hagima. Yamaha-Hagima tea production cooperative wined three awards in each competition of green tea in 2015, indicating highly sophisticated technique of tea cultivation and production
I hope you will enjoy their teas of fine quality, and communicating with Moriki-san also in the market.
–Details–
Date : 30th(sat) and 31th(sun) in Jan. (Days Moriki farm will join)
** This farmers’ market has a lot of participants from all Japan and is held in every weekend. Please check the participants and products in its official website.
Place : United Nations University in Shibuya-ku, Tokyo.
Access : The nearest station is Shibuya station.
As for how to make railway plan, please search using “JNTO Travel Planner”. (At the below part of this link page, we can look “-> JNTO Travel Planner”.)
** Please search “farmers market unu”.
Tea has various polyelectrolyte, such as 4 types of catechins in green tea, pectins, polysaccharides, theaflavins and thearubigins in black tea, and so on.
We know these constituents determine tea taste.
In addition, complexes or aggregates of these polyelectrolyte could affect taste and mouthfeel of tea, in my personal opinion.
If laser light is applied to some solution which contain submicron size particles such as polyelectrolyte, the light scatters as depicted in some scientific blogs. We can see a red line of light scattering in the suspension. We obviously find the suspension turbid.
Tea infusion can also scatters laser light as follows, even though its color is clear as we can see through the wood grain of the table.
This means tea infusion contains submicron-size particles, although this tea infusion doesn’t seem to be turbid.
What are these particles?
I guess these could be the complexes or aggregates of tea polyelectrolyte.
Polyelectrolyte can aggregate by some mineral ions such as calcium, ferric ion, etc. and bind such ions making complexes. I think lower infusion rate of tea polyelectrolyte under higher concentration of calcium ion, as clarified by Sipro et al.[140]
I’d like to continue to post such kind of personal speculation.
[140] Spiro M., Price W.E., Miller W.M., Arami M. (1987) : Kinetics and equilibria of tea infusion: Part 8—the effects of salts and of pH on the rate of extraction of theaflavins from black tea leaf, Food Chemistry 25:117-126
Green tea “Sencha” has a potential to be brewed more than three times.
In Japan, it is recommended to infuse green tea at low temperature at first infusion and then re-steep at higher temperature than the previous infusion. An example of water temperature to infuse deep-steamed green tea “fukamushi cha” is shown as follows.
In this condition, extraction behavior of each constituents determining tea taste is shown in the following picture, based on results measured by Sakamoto et al. [089].
The first infusion makes us enjoy umami due to amino acids and delicate taste with fresh aroma. In the case of higher grade one, these flavors keep longer and finish smoothly and more gracefully.
The second infusion has a nice balance of umami with bitterness and astringency. In the case of higher grade one, in some minutes after sipping it, aftertaste can keep longer and change to sweet gradually. In the supposition of the author, this grdual change in aftertaste to sweet would be caused by the conformation change of taste-determining polyelectrolyte such as catechins, tannin, saccharides and their complexes, due to the change in their surrounding chemical conditions such as electrochemical potential and oxidation-reduction potential.
The third infusion has more bitter and astringent taste derived from catechins.
In addition to these taste, we can enjoy the change in infusion color also, especially in case of deep-steamed green tea. Till the third infusion, its color is getting deeper green with the progress of re-steeping.
As just described, we can find expressive faces of green tea by re-steeping.
Furthermore, we can arrange the flavor of green tea by adjusting water temperature and steeping time based on the extraction kinetics of each taste-determining constitution.
In my personal opinion, I prefer longer infusion time at 1st infusion, resulting in more umami and fine aftertaste for me.
Please try various arrangement of infusion conditions as you like!
<Reference>
[089] Sakamoto A., Nakagawa M., Sugiyama H., Horie H. (2002) The compositions of the respective infusions of Sencha brewed three times, Tea Research Journal94:45-55 (in Japanese)
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Colorful leaves and flowers make us happy! We can enjoy autumn crimson and yellow along with evergreen tea plants in Makinohara plateau, especially on its terrace sides. Cold dry air and sunshine create fantastic scenes and beautiful landscape. Tea leaves … Continue reading