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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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On 4th Feb., a workshop was held in order to sophisticate not only the technique of black tea production but also the ability to express how good one’s black tea is. Kanazawa Yuu made some lecture for 10 participants. She … Continue reading
Based on the Tea Council of the USA, January 12th is recognized as “National Hot Tea Day” in USA., suggesting that the coldest month makes us to be eager to drink hot tea.
Hot teas provide us warmness, soothing sense of relief, power to live, comfortable time with family and loved one, especially in cold days. In the bedtime scene, a nightcap tea invites us smoothly to a comfortable dream.
In general, it is recommended to brew Japanese green tea at lower temperature, resulting in better taste due to the difference in infusion rate of each constituent determining taste.
At lower temperature, amino acids responsible to umami and delicate taste diffuse faster(*1) than caffeine or catechins, responsible to bitter or astringent taste. This tendency was clarified in the reference[091] described at the end of this post and depicted as follows.
If we brew Japanese green tea at high temperature around 100 degree Celsius, constituents of bitter and astringent taste will be infused more. While we know such fact, nevertheless we would like to enjoy hot green tea of better taste as soon as possible.
Yutaka Koizumi, a past president of the Prefectural Research Center of Tea Industry in Shizuoka, told a nice idea to enjoy umami-rich green tea at higher temperature very easily as shown below.
1) Soaking tea leaves in water for minutes(*2).
Loose leaf tea is soaked in a little amount of water for some minutes.
In this process, amino acids are infused.
2) Adding hot water
Pour hot water to the tea pot, and then brew tea into tea cups.
Only two processes will provide better taste tea at warm temperature.
In my personal opinion, this method can be apply to Japanese black tea also.
I hope you will find this method very helpful.
< Note >
(*1) Based on the Fick’s first law and Stokes-Einstein equation, diffusion flux of each constituent increases as molecular size increases.
(*2)Soaking time can be extended. I often soak before going to work and pour hot water after coming home. More than 10 hours soak does not result in bitterness and astringency so much. I feel a little bit bitterer and more astringent.
<References>
[091] Ikeda S., Nakagawa M., Iwasa K. (1972) : Relation between Infusing Condition of Green Tea and Soluble Component, Tea Research Journal 37:69-78 (in Japanese).
World O-Cha Festival will be held in Shizuoka prefecture in spring and autumn 2016.
The spring festival will be held between 5/13 and 5/15, and the autumn festival will be held between 10/27 and 10/30. The details are described in the official website.
The overview of its program is almost prepared and the details will be arranged till the festival.
The festival has various programs such as the collaboration with music, garden making, flower, pottery making etc., tea tourism, exhibition of teas and the related products, tea ceremonies, seminars and so on.
It is not necessary to apply. Please enjoy freely.
Additional information will be posted in “Event” and “Guide for trips” pages.
And if you need more additional information, please contact the organizer by e-mail, whose address is described at the bottom of its official website.
(It is also possible to contact through this blog comment, I cannot guarantee to reply all comments)
Wishing you a happy and joyful life in 2016! And hopefully with tea!!
I hope tea and tea products would provide you many fortunes.
In Japan, the first sunshine so-called “Goraikou” has a special power to make us happy. Hopefully, I wish the sunshine through tea garden will bring you happiness.
In this day, the sky was so clear, resulting in so nice view of Mt. Fuji beyond tea gardens. It seems that the scared mountain Fuji empowers tea gardens!
Scenes of the dawn in the mountain recalled me a phrase in “The Pillow Book” by Sei Shounagon, an ancient poet in Japan as follows.
Such scene came into my view like below.
On the tea garden located the edge of mountain, I could watch that the color of tea plants surface changed from slightly dark to faint red.
The sky in this day was too clear for me to find purplish cloud tail over them.
The first day of 2016 provided so wonderful scenes!!
*As for the title, MTFBWY means not only “May The Force Be With You”, it does mean “May Teas & Fortunes Be With You” also, just in my personal opinion 🙂
I hope Shizuoka teas bring you a prosperity!
Local food festival so-called “FURUSATO Maturi” will be held in Tokyo Dome City.
We can enjoy a variety of local foods from all over Japan, of course, Japanese tea produced in Shizuoka also.
Shizuoka tea and related products will be provided by the group of highly-motivated farmers so-called “Makinohara Ninteikyo”. In the page introducing sellers, you can see the image as below.
*Japanese character meaning
As for the farmers introduced in the page of “Tea farmers”, Ito-san will join this festival on 8th and 9th. He will welcome you with high-grade loose leaf tea and his nice gentle smile!
Other prominent tea farmers also will join the festival and welcome you with their nice hospitality, OMOTENASHI mind. I hope you will enjoy all in the festival, especially tea products from Shizuoka and communication with Shizuoka tea farmers.
—Details—
Period : 8th-17th January 2016
Open time : basically from 10:00 to 18:00 (at 8th 11:00-21:00, 13th-15th 10:00-21:00)
Place : Tokyo Dome City
Entrance fee : 1,600yen for 1day-pass, 1,100yen for evening pass.
Venue map : As for how to go the venue from the nearest stations, please see the surround map. The venue is “Tokyo Dome”, captioned as No.1 in the map. As for the map of its inside, the map of the venue is depicted in the webpage of Tokyo Dome City. (Unfortunately, this page is described in Japanese only.)
Access : The access map depicted in the webpage of Tokyo Dome City. (Fortunately, this page is described in English.) For searching the way to the nearest station, it is useful to search by JNTO Travel Planner. On the below part of the link page, you can see “-> JNTO Travel Planner”. Please click it and then, please input or select station name for departure and final destination.
As for how to use JNTO Travel Planner, please see the page “Guide for trips“.
If you are interested in green tourism and Japan, I’d like to recommend Shizuoka prefecture in Japan, the kingdom of Japanese tea, as a candidate for “EverGreen tourism”! *
Tea plant (the scientific name, “Camellia Sinensis”) is a species of evergreen plant, so we can see the deep green color of lush tea plant even in the autumn and winter time.
In the autumn time, we can enjoy one of the most beautiful and fantastic scene in Japan, the contrast of deep green of tea plants and autumn color of red, yellow or orange of seasonal plants as below.
Especially, Shizuoka is the most recommended site! Shizuoka has a variety of tea gardens located in diverse geography such as plateau, hillside, slopeside of the mountain, riverside and so on.
For example, on the plateau, the sea of tea plantation fills our view.
On the other hand, at the slopeside, a wealth of multihued plants could feast our eyes.
In addition, we can get the view of Mt. Fuji through tea gardens.
In this year, it is still warm compared with every year, thus plants still keep autumn tinge.
Perhaps, it will keep for fewer than 2 weeks. So it is the last opportunity to enjoy the autumn of Japan as a green tourism in this season. So anyway, we can enjoy “EverGreen tourism” through the year!
I hope you will enjoy Japanese autumn atmosphere with tea plants, and in addition, enjoy Japanese tea or related products in tea shops. I’d be grateful if you find pages of “Tea shops and products” and “Guide for trips” useful as a guide for your tour.
*Now the map for Makinohara tour is being prepared. I’m planning to add other activities we can enjoy with green tourism, such as lunch, seasonal events, cultural programs, heritages and so on.
I’d be happy if you refer to the guide map of Makinohara city in Shizuoka or the other useful websites.
*Disclaimer : Here, I mean “EverGreen tourism” as “A type of green tourism, to mainly visit the sites where we can enjoy evergreen plants”. Although there are a lot of companies that have its name containing the word “evergreen tourism” worldwide, I never intend to make someone confuse or misunderstand. I would just like to intend a play on word.
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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
Tea is one of the most attractive drink all over the world.
It contains various active ingredients, such as theanine, catechin, many kinds of vitamin (especially high V.C.), saponin, caffeine, and so on.
Orinigal term “Theanoholics” means the holics of tea due to a multiple of attractive features of tea made from leaves (shoots) of Camellia Sinensis.
Human being have created hosts of tea drink which include tea made from leaves of Camellia Sinensis and tisane (drink made from plants other than Camellia Sinensis). Every infusion, every ingredient plants have positive effects for human health.
Above all, tea is considered to be the most beneficial to our health thanks to a wealth of functional ingredients and a variety of taste and flavor of tea.
Perhaps, it seems that there are millions… billions of theanoholics worldwide. This blog provides various information about various tea (mainly Japanese tea) and Shizuoka Prefecture, the kingdom of Japanese green tea, for such theanoholics.