Japanese green tea « Art and Tea

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Green, green, green. After a week of cool, rainy spring days, the world outside is resplendent in a cloak of velvety green shades.

Do you find that the weather influences your choice of tea? I do. Darker, more full-bodied teas when it’s chilly and lighter, more delicate teas for those warm, light filled days.

The green world is definitely affecting my choice of tea this morning, a Japanese Sencha called “Koumi”. Grown in the Uji region of Kyoto prefecture in Japan, its dark green, glossy leaves have been lightly steamed during processing to halt oxidation.

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In the mid 1300s, Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu promoted the cultivation and production of high quality green tea in Uji. The Tsuen Tea Shop, located by the Uji bridge, is reputed to be the oldest tea shop in all of Japan, with the first “Tsuen” serving tea to weary travelers in 1160.

TsuenTeaShop

I steeped the tea leaves for 2 1/2 minutes in 160 degree F water. It’s amazing how green the leaves are, especially after steeping.

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The steeped liquor is a beautiful spring green with an aroma of freshly steamed asparagus.

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The flavor is delicate and smooth with light corn notes. I’ve read that one of the health benefits of green tea is the ability of the polyphenols to inhibit plaque and bacterial growth in your mouth. With its clean, refreshing taste and mouth feel, I can certainly believe that.

In contrast to last weekend, this weekend will be a lazy, hazy one spent puttering around the abode. Its time to take stock of all of the art projects I’ve got started and set some priorities for finishing them!

I wonder what it would be like to live in a world

where it was always June.

~L.M. Montgomery

The weekend is showing promise of perfect mid-summer weather – nice and warm with lower humidity and sunny skies. Now that things are caught up from vacation both at work and at home, I’m looking forward to a couple of days with no responsibilities, filled with working on my art projects. I started my May journal page but set it aside for vacation. Now it’s time to turn my focus back to it and complete what I started. There are so many things that I would like to do and sometimes I get so overwhelmed with trying to balance it all, especially with a full-time day job. How do you find balance in your life?

Ok, time for my cup of tea. This morning I’m sipping a Japanese Sencha called Supersencha Kamakura. The dry leaf looks like grass clippings, flat, smooth and very green. Green tea has a long history in Japan, having been introduced in the 9th century by a Buddhist monk returning from his travels in China. You can read more about it here. The most well known type of Japanese green tea is Matcha, the powdered green tea used for the Tea Ceremony, Chanoyu (translation: hot water for tea). I had the honor of attending a tea ceremony last fall in Boston and I wrote about it here.

After the leaves are plucked, they are steamed to stop the oxidation and then rubbed and dried. The rubbing breaks down the cell walls and releases the volatile oils which gives the tea its wonderful flavor.

The liquor has an interesting yellow green color and sweet, vegetal aroma. Japanese green tea can be very vegetal tasting, moreso than Chinese green tea. This tea is quite vegetal but also sweet which smooths out the pungency. There is also a slight nutty note which lingers on my tongue. Years ago I received this tea bowl as a gift from a friend and it is perfect for my Japanese green tea. I imagine majestic mountains watching over the tea fields below.