On 11th May Anna was invited by Jenny Chih-Chieh Teng from Mellow Sheng to join one of her beautiful tea ceremonies in Barcelona. As they both share a passion for kombucha and fermentation, Anna was asked to brew Goishicha!
The ceremony started with an introduction of the teas – and the brewers – and went on in a relaxing atmosphere. Jenny brewed first: a very special Chinese tea, an aged white Fuding that she got from her teacher. While drinking it, surprisingly you could feel the medley between the white tea and our next Goishicha was quite a good match!
All the attendees were immediately surprised when tasting the fermented tea from Kochi: nobody expected a salty-sour tea! Everyone liked it and was quite interested in how it is processed, what health benefits it may have, how different and humble regional banchas can be compared to the elegant image we usually have of Japanese teas.
Good thing then the gran finale of the event was with homemade yam and beans yokan and sesame paste wagashi paired with a cold brew oxidized oolong!
Thank you Jenny for having us and for wanting to open the door for more tea lovers on the peculiar world of fermented Japanese tea.
To find out more about Goishicha, read one of our previous posts about it.
Photo credit: Mellow Sheng