Winter time is the training time for the Japanese Tea Professionals Competition. The competition is based on sensory evaluation of tea. The participants have to identify tea harvesting season from dry tea appearance; tea cultivar from wet tea leaves and the brew, tea kind and producing region from dry tea leaves, etc. The competition also […]
As we keep on saying, there is not much information on Japanese tea that can be found outside Japan and in other languages than Japanese. That is why, during 2019, we have been super happy to see the outcome of two new books about Japanese tea in English! As the newest one was published just […]
Miho museum in Shiga recently had a Bizenyaki exhibition. Bizen in Okayama prefecture is one of the 6 oldest kilns in Japan – pottery has been made here for over 600 years. Traditionally Bizen wares are fired unglazed in wood burning kilns. Because of that the result is slightly rough texture and primitive earthy colours […]
Every year Japan Tea Industry Association holds a conference to present the recent research topics on Japanese tea. Every major tea producing prefecture in Japan (such as Shizuoka, Kagoshima, Fukuoka, Kyoto, Mie, etc.) has their research centers and they all work on making improvements on Japanese tea. The yearly conference gives them an opportunity to […]
The past weekend Berlin Tea Festival took place: we had high expectations but the real event surpassed them all! An incredible, warm and wide tea community gathered in Berlin for this beautiful festival. With over 50 exhibitors, active projects and 60 programs, more than 1000 participants attended: a melting pot of tea lovers coming from […]
Noticing a growing interest in Japanese tea, this year we held the Japanese Tea Master Course twice. The second course took place in September. September can be tricky with the weather as it is called the typhoon season in Japan. This year luckily, they let us carry on without interruption. This time the course was […]
Nihoncha Award is a Japanese tea competition. It aims to select and award the best Japanese teas in various categories, such as: Sencha, Gyokuro, Kamairicha, Hojicha, free-style tea and others. The winners are selected after several rounds of evaluation. First two rounds are done by tea professionals, and in third round the general public is […]
In the middle of August one street of Kyoto – Gojo, becomes particularly lively, as it hosts the annual pottery festival. Gojo has always been known as a pottery area in Kyoto. The famous Kyoto pottery styles– Kyo-yaki and Kyomizu-yaki have been produced in this area and sold in numerous pottery shops on Gojo street. […]