Red Tea from Japan: that is the exact translation of Wakoucha. But we in Europe call it a black tea, and for us black tea comes from India or China or Sri Lanka, not from Japan. And in a nation where the production of green tea is so dominant that for the biggest part of […]
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 world of Japanese tea is wide and deep. By now many people know Matcha, Gyokuro, Sencha. Some other teas may not have been in the spotlight but they are also worth some attention. One of them is Kukicha, or stem tea, if translated literary form Japanese. What that means is that Kukicha mostly includes […]
When tea reached Japan, Chinese pottery and teaware were used to prepare and drink tea. It was only in the 15th century with tea master Murata Jukō that Japanese tea wares started to replace Chinese ones and a more rustic – and sometimes rough – style developed in tea ceremony. During the 16th century, when Sen no Rikyu developed […]
All around the world people are drinking tea and they are getting more curious about it. It is a great pleasure to see new literature about tea. Eighty ° is a new tea magazine, started in 2019, that collects and bundles together various stories on tea. It covers numerous tea regions, various tea kinds and […]
Kombucha is a fermented drink made from tea, whose origins are thought to be in north-eastern China sometime around 200 BC. Rich in probiotics, this drink has recently been seeing a boom in Western world thanks to its alleged good properties; it is made by adding tea with sugar or honey to a symbiotic culture […]
Tea ceremonies are a part of the Japanese culture, where the host and guests come together in a tea room to participate a performance of the traditional ritual. Many are familiar with Sado, the tea ceremony that involves Matcha. The other tea ceremony, Senchado, that involved Sencha, is much rarer; and unlike Sado, that has […]