On 13th July we were invited by our friends of Wagashi Utatane and The Matcha House to participate at a whole day of Japanese tea events and tastings in Madrid, Spain. Yoko Yakushiji of The Matcha House had a stand selling Japanese teas and treats. Utako Nakamori held a nerikiri wagashi workshop while Eiko Kishi did a chado demonstration.
Anna was joined by Nichika – one of our Japanese Tea Evangelists that happened to be in Madrid. What a timing! Nichika had helped us previously at our Kyoto office, it was a pleasure having her around to help. Together they held two workshops about Japanese green tea. The participants could learn what is green tea and what kinds of it we can find in Japan. Also how to brew sencha with a kyusu. And they could even enjoy it together with some very nice Japanese sweets that Utako had prepared for the occasion.
The second part of each workshop consisted in a small chakabuki (tea guessing game)! The teas to guess were a hojicha from Uji, a genmaicha and a sencha from Nishio (thank you, The Matcha House!). It might have been an easy guess, but to spice things up, we blindfolded the participants with colourful tenuguis – how fun!
Moreover, a nice surprise was also that one of our member, Isabel, attended the workshop: she had travelled all the way from the north of Spain. Thank you so much for joining, it was a pleasure meeting in person!
We are looking forward to organising more fun tea tasting activities in the future! In the meantime, dates are set for the first Japanese Tea Foundation Course in Spanish, that will take place in Madrid on 7th and 8th of November 2024.