Den's Tea Kukicha

Kukicha, literally twig tea, also know by its stage name, Karigane, was my first Japanese tea and still one of my favorites. Technically it is a by-product tea, and sometimes looked down on or considered inferior because of this. All I have to say about that is "hmph."

This tea is from Shizuoka as well.

Kukicha tends to be flexible and forgiving, so play around with it and find the way that suits you best. I like 5.5-6 g. for about 210 ml starting at 180-ish for 60 s, 30 s, 45 s.

The aroma is sweet, but when put in the preheated kyusu it turns vegetal, thick.

The first infusion tastes like it smells, thick mouth-feel, vegetal, not astringent, moderately sweet, The second steep (pictured) the liquor turns cloudy and very green, soupy. There's a crispness. The tea is developing notes similar to Hibiki-an's gyokuro karigane. The third and final steep has a much lighter mouth-feel, and it mellows out.

Last week I had a perfect session with this tea, five amazing steeps. I have since been unable to reproduce the same results. Even so, I like this tea, ad it has potential to be great.

Kamikaze Girls

(Shimotsuma monogatari)

This movie is a story about the unlikely friendship between two girls, Momoko, a "lolita" and Ichiko, a "yanki" (yakuza wannabe). It has a lot of heart, style, and humor, but most important, it also has a decent bit of head-butting. Its so...visceral. When ninety-pound girls head-butt each other, everyone wins.

The DVD includes a special feature that provides cultural tidbits concerning the film as you watch it. Last night I learned about pachinko (a cross between pinball and slot machines), where to do the best shopping in Tokyo (Daikanyama), and the difference between a "baby lolita" and a "goth-lolita" (it has to do with colors and quantities of lace).

If you get a chance, its worth the two hours of your life.

Den's Tea Matcha Miyabi

The Miyabi is the highest grade matcha that Den's Tea offers.

According to Wikipedia, Miyabi is a traditional Japanese aesthetic ideal that "demanded the decline of anything that was absurd or vulgar and the 'polishing of manners, diction, and feelings to eliminate all roughness and crudity so as to achieve the highest grace."

This matcha should be used for koicha (thick tea).

Aroma: (5/10 - and that's being a little generous) The fragrance was typical but subdued.

Sweetness: (6.5/10) It has decently sweet characteristics, you just have to be sure to use enough.

Astringency: (1/10) It's as smooth as can be, not the slightest bit of astringency or bitterness.

Flavor: (5/10) Like the Kaze this tea was very mild, and I simply prefer my matcha to have some umph to it. Even when using more, 5-6 scoops vs the traditional 3-4, it only serves to add a smokey throatiness, but fails to increase the over all flavor.

Again, like the Kaze, this matcha comes from Shizuoka instead of Uji. I will keep an eye out for another Shizzy matcha from a different vendor to see if the Kaze and Miyabi are typical examples of that region, but in the meantime, if you like lots of flavor in your matcha, I recommend giving Den's a pass.

Whisking, if you care about this kind of thing.

I have been told when whisking matcha, part of the idea is to avoid large bubbles. Of course this is more of an aesthetic concern, because as long as you whisk the matcha thoroughly, it won't effect the taste one way or the other.

I have found the best way to avoid large bubbles in the froth is to use deliberate strokes, fast at first, then slow. You're not beating eggs.

Kickboxing Geishas

How Japanese Women are Changing Their Nation

The title alone sold me on this book.

I have become deeply interested in gender roles, so I enjoyed this book a great deal. While the author, Veronica Chambers, focuses on the diverse and changing lives of women in Japan, since it is impossible to define gender roles without exploring both sides, you learn about the part Japanese men must play as well. Chambers does a wonderful job of providing a fair illustration of the complex relationship between men and women, both in the corporate world and in their personal lives.

I learned a variety of things along the way, parasite singles (people who live with their parents, who support them, well into their late 20's or 30's ), Narita Rekon (newlyweds getting divorced as soon as they return from the honeymoon, because the wife realises just what her husband is like, thus ditches him at the airport upon their return), and Japans ostentatious costume culture, from hip hop to "Lolitas." Chambers also explores how unique aspects of Japanese culture make certain things that we take for granted, like dating, problematic.

It was a very good book, very enjoyable. Learning more about someone's culture, helps us to better understand our own.

Den's Tea Guricha (Tamaryokucha)

I'm real fuzzy about the difference between guricha and sencha. Both are steamed, but according to O-cha, guricha, or tamaryokucha, as it is more commonly known as, is "made into comma-shaped tea with a rolling dryer."

Though this tea is produced mainly in Kyushu, Den's Guricha, like all their teas, comes from Shizuoka.

My standard brewing parameters for Japanese green tea is to start off with 4.5 grams per 8 oz of water and steep for 1.5 minutes, then 30 seconds for the second, then adjust the time after that according to taste. I start with water about 175-ish, and creep back up to boiling by the last infusion.

In my experience with Japanese tea, that first infusion is just a warm up, wakes the tea up, the second will be the strongest infusion, and also in my experience, is the easiest to screw up.

First Infusion: (1.5 min) The liquor is fairly clear. The tea is creamy with a thicker mouth feel. I want to describe it as mild, but moderate would be more accurate, similar to a mid-steamed sencha in intensity. There is a very subtle, astringent/dry mouth feel in the finish.

Second Infusion: (.5 min) The tea is cloudy now; like I said, it's all about the second infusion. It is still creamy but sweet now.

Third Infusion: (1 min) It is lighter now, sweeter, pleasantly vegetal. The bit of astringency in the finish is gone now.

Fourth Infusion: (3 min) The liquor is clear again. Most of the flavor is gone, and what I am left with is mostly just tea water, sweeter still. It is an enjoyable cup, though.

The over all flavor is somewhere between kukicha and sencha. I liked it well enough, not as much as others I know, but the tea gives a solid performance.



Cha no Aji (The Taste of Tea)

"Director Katsuhito Ishii's whimsical episodic tale chronicles a summer in the lives of the quirky Haruno clan, who passes the unhurried days trying to realize their ambitions. As Mom attempts to revive her career, her hypnotherapist hubby practices on the family. Meanwhile, their pubescent son feels the pangs of love, and their 6-year-old daughter grapples with a pesky dopplegänger."

This was a quiet and peaceful movie, void of the typical stereotypes, yet possesses a charming surrealism that brings to mind Michel Gondry's The Science of Sleep.

Set in rural Japan, the beautiful scenery and sheer lack of noise was stunning and soothing. I enjoyed the realism, the lack of melodrama or conflict. It was not a story about a family at odds with each other but who loved one another.

Den's Tea Houji-Genmaicha

I don't like houjicha, and I don't like genmaicha, but after seeing how wonderful Den's houji-kukicha was, I wanted to give this one a shot, too. Genmai translates to brown rice. It was a peasant drink. Rice was cheaper than tea, so the poor would use it as filler. Its typically comprised of roasted rice and bancha. But as I have discovered with oolong, roasting tea = awesomeness.

The aroma is simple: roasted, hint of green, popcorn. In that order.

You can prepare this tea however you like. It's idiot-proof. I have used boiling water for a ten minute steep with no astringency, bitterness, or yuckiness. Seriously, you can not fuck this up.

The liquor is very clear and pure. Looks like amber.

First infusion: The tea is thin but flavorful and filling. It tastes moderately roasted with a very sweet finish that I can taste in the back of my mouth. Very, very smooth, as smooth as water. It doesn't taste like genamicha to me, nor does it posses any characteristics of green tea.

Second infusion: Just as sweet as the first, but less over all flavor.

Third infusion: Sweeter but even less flavor.

I am enjoying these variations of houjicha. They offer a delightful departure from the the typical, though wonderful, profile of Japanese tea.


Because tea has always been for me a window into other cultures, and because my rapdily growing interest in Japanese tea inevitably goes hand in hand with my growing fondness for that particular culture, and finally beacuse I hoped that this themed week could offer a little more than just tea reviews, I will end each post this week with a brief review on either a book or a film that I think was particularly profound or revealing of Japanese culture, history or lifestyles.

Shogun

James Clavell's Shogun was the very begining of my interest and love of Japan and the various facets of their culture and history. The book was among my father's things after he died; he was always fond of it, so I gave it a chance. I knew nothing of Japan at the time.

Ending with the Batle of Sekigahara, the unification of Japan under the Tokugawa Shogunate, Shogun is a fictional story woven around the factual events that occured at the end of the Momoyama Period. Though names were changed, many of the primary and secondary characters are archetypes of historical figures such as Tokugawa Ieyasu, Hosokawa Tama, and of course William Adams, the first foreign samurai.

After borrowing the characters and the historical structure for the story, Clavell then bends or dismmises the facts in order to create a better story, much like legends of old, so first and foremost, Shogun is a story, a very entertaining and classic one, with elements of adventure, pirates, foreign lands and war, of samurai and ninja and courtesans, of life, death and love. Along the way the author eases the reader into Japanese culture. We are meant to take this journey with John Blackthorn (William Adams), seeing things at first as barbaric and incomprehensible, but as time goes by, become more objective and learn to appraise a foreign culture by their values and not merely by ours.

That which is different is not inherently wrong or inferior.

2007 Feng Huang Dan Cong

Description taken from Tea Spring:

Dan Cong is a very old tea which history dates back to 900 years ago. The tea plants are believed to be a specimen of the Shui Xian strain, carefully selected to breed as Dan Cong's tree, which is a single trunk tree that rises tall and straight up, and with branches that open out like an umbrella. Feng Huang Dan Cong was also an Imperial tribute tea during the Song dynasty.

True to their word, the aroma does smell lighter, less oxidized, than the dan cong classic. It has a fruity aroma, peach-ish, but something else as well.

The first infusion is buoyant, sweet, and fruity, with a soft finish, It tastes like spring in the South. I try to avoid "poetry" in my descriptions, but I think it fits. I sip this, and I think of longer evenings, old porches with chipped paint and backyards, sweet tea and catching fireflies in mason jars. I can hear dogs barking and see an orange, setting sun through tree leaves.

The second infusion and I'm home again.

2007 Dan Cong Classic

This one is from Tea Spring, and my very first. I tried it last fall, not knowing what to expect, and was quite impressed.

Note on pronunciation: cong is pronounced like chong.

This tea goes through a "higher" level of oxidation, which you can smell in the bouquet, something darker lingering in the background. The rinsed aroma is peach, then a breath, then peach. Like candy. Its vivid, and I can taste it.

I like the warm peach liquor. I do enjoy the various colors of different tea, burgundy, yellow, gold, peach, green; its a splash of color in a field of brown, beige, and white tea ware.

First infusion is light, a little too light; my fault--too little leaf or too little time. Its sweet, not peachy, nothing like the fragrance promised, but it is there in the finish, faint, with a dab of bright astringency. The second is...not harsh, but its not soft, leaves a dry mouth feel, which persists into the third infusion, though this one is sweeter.

So. I hate to admit this, but I didn't label my pictures when I took them last week. So I had to spen about ten minutes trying to match them to the correct teas. I think I got them right, based on the leaves and the color of the tea, but who the hell knows for sure. Just sayin'.

1986 Fenghuang Dan Cong

After reading so much about aged oolong from Marshal's blog, I was very excited to try this, the third and last dan cong from Tea Habitat--their site is still under construction, so no link.

It has the most unique aroma of the six, not peachy at all; it smells fermented, to me at least. There is a also the familiar aged scent of puerh. I can't help but think that there is more information in the aroma than I can perceive.

The first infusion was creamy, soft, sweet, then a bit of peach, light bodied. Smooth. The second infusion was consistant with the first in color and flavor. The third was lighter and less creamy. The fourth was a step above tea water.

This one was my favorite. I loved the softer profile of peaches and cream. I think this tea has a lot of promise, and I want to explore it further. I will buy more the next time I am shopping for an oolong. My curiosity is thoroughly piqued, and I can see why Marshal is fond of aged oolong. It has character and depth.

2007 Dan Cong Yu Lan Xiang

This is the second dan cong from Tea Habitat. The name, Yu Lan Xiang, translates to magnolia blossom fragrance.

Yesterday I was in a hurry, so the reveiw was rather hastily written. Though I can't gurantee that tonight's will be any better, I will try harder.

For the six dan cong that I am reviewing this week, I took my notes over the course of two sessions, the Tea Habitat one day and Tea Spring the next, so even though the reviews are seperated into individual posts, they are all part of the whole. My tasting notes inevitably compare and contrast the teas against each other, even if it is not explicit. It may help to know that these posts are written in the order that the tea was sampled.

I kept the brewing parameters largely consistant, 5 grams in a 150 ml gaiwan, though brewing times and temperatures varied depending on what I felt was best at the time.

The dry leaves are smaller, not as long.

The peachy aroma is more visceral, sweeter, a wet texture. Clean and fresh. Like summer peach.

The tea is smooth with just the faintest hint of something that could one day grow up to be astringency. If it eats its spinach. I give it a 2.5 on the peachy scale. The second infusion is fuller-bodied, has a more golden liquor, and develops some of the same smokey-astringent finish as yesterday's oolong.

I talk about astringency a lot. I think the word is in almost everyone one of my tea reviews. Either I need to expand my tasting vocabulary, or astringency is very important to me. I think its a balance, too much astringency makes the tea harsh, brassy, but just enough gives it texture and sass.

2007 Dan Cong Ao Iu Hou

...or so my chicken scratch declares it to be, and ever shall it be so.

This tea comes from Tea Habitat.

For more about Dan Cong, check out its page on wikiCHA.

I know dan cong comes from Guangdong, but is it considered a yancha? Does the term refer only to Wuyi oolong? Either way the leaves are gorgeous; it is always a delight to photograph oolong such as this.

Aroma: When placed in a heated gaiwan there is the delightful smell of peaches followed by a subtle but distinct note of charcoal. When rinsed, the charcoal is subdued, replaced by something green.

The first infusion is moderately bodied with a smokey astringency that's not to0 strong. On a peachy scale, I'd give it a 3/5. With the second and third infusions, the peachiness and astringency seem to go hand in hand, together becoming more subdued. The third steep is sweeter than the first two.

This Week in Tea

When I said that "This Week in Tea" would be a weekly or bi-monthly post, I think I meant to say bi-annual.

First up I'd like to have a moment of silence for our tea friend and TeaChatter, Bhale, and his kikumaru. Let me say here that which can not be adequitely expressed in the forum: dude, that fucking sucks.

Bhale and others have been working on wikiCHA, a wiki dedicated solely to tea. They have made some wonderful progress, and I am excited to see it grow, so check it out and please feel free to give them a hand. I would, but I'm lazy and stupid. Seriously, HTML owns me. If you've ever wondered why you can't get half of my pictures to open when you click on them, that's why.

Theme weeks are coming back, as all the reviews I have coming up fit in tidy little catagories.

*Dan Cong Week: Six varieties of Dan Cong from Tea Habitat and Tea Spring.
*Japanese Week 2: Den's Tea Maki, Shin-ryoku, Miyabi, Guricha, Houji-Genmai, and Powdered Sencha, plus a book review on Soshitsu Sen's Chado.
*"Specialty" Tea Week: Two Leaves and a Bud, Teance, and The E&A Tea Company. At least one of them wont suck.

Tea for Valentines

Rose Petal Tea.

Valentine's Day, a beautiful expression of love or a tired Hallmark Holiday, either way, I'm not gettin' any, so fuck it.

In a fantastic display of fu-fu ickiness, The Republic of Tea releases their Rose Petal Tea every January. Given my profound contempt for the Ministers, I thought this tea would be the ideal vehicle for a bit of sophmoric silliness. Only it turned out to be kind of good.

I have had a rose-scented tea before, and was not impressed, but I think it works out much better with a full-bodied black tea such as this. The aroma is very strong, perfume-y, but the actual tea is more subdued. The rose turns a brisk but simple black tea into naturally sweet, toothsome goodness, great for the morning after.

Shizuoka Koucha

Koucha. Black tea. Japanese black tea.

Grown in Shizuoka, this tea is no longer the stuff of legend or late night gossip; the mythical kirin has been found.

The leaves aren't much to look at; it is a broken leaf variety, a 60/40 blend of yabukita and fujimidori.

I used 3 g./8 oz for 3.5 minutes, and it is a surprisingly good cup of tea. My initial impressions when I got this tea last month weren't that great; I purchased it purely out of curiosity. But tonight I am impressed after revisiting it.

The aroma of the dry leaf is woodsy, with a hint of something that could be described as barbecue, a subtle smokey-sweetness. The brewed tea has a thin mouth feel, like a less astringent Darjeeling--it is not astringent at all but rather smooth. It tastes fruity, but...thick; I think stone fruit is an apt description, plum. It is very sweet, keemun sweet; there is a sugary essence in the finish, and as it cools, I do taste a hint of pecan. This turned out to be more complex than other varieties of black tea.

There is an interesting bit about black tea in Japan here.

Update: I just finished another batch of this tea, and I think I know why I enjoyed it so much more than the first time I had it. If I take the time to taste the tea, pay attention to the nuances, I like it quite a bit. On the other hand, if I just gulp it down, I'm less impressed with it. This could apply to many teas, I'm sure.

O-cha's Matcha Chiyo Mukashi

Ocha's Chiyo Mukashi, a wonderful birthday present from my in-laws, is from Uji. According to Kevin the name translates as chi: one thousand, yo: era or period, mukashi: long ago, ancient.

I had just opened a fresh tin of Nakai's Uji Matcha, so I planned to wait a while before opening it. My self-control lasted twelve, maybe sixteen hours, eight of which I was asleep. Go will-power.

This matcha is meant for koicha, but can be used for usucha. I found usucha to be too mild for this tea, so the following notes are for koicha.

Aroma: (9/10) Strong, you open it and seconds later you can smell it. Sweet, thick. Vegetal; I shit you not, I smell...french fries or veggie chips. I think my brain, when encountering a new, unknown smell, simply spins a wheel and picks whatever random association the needle stops on.

Sweetness: (3/10) Not very sweet.

Astringency: (5-7/10) This is the most astringent matcha I've had yet. If I prepare it using Hibiki's koicha instructions, it is very astringent, I can feel it predominantly on the sides of my tongue. If I use O-cha's koicah instructions, its dialed down a bit, and I can feel it in the back of my throat.

Flavor: (7/10) This is a distinctive matcha, with a clear vegetal profile that helps it stand out. It is bold and clean. As I said, I found usucha was too mild, but koicha is just a smidgen more astringent than I prefer. I think three scoops is a good compromise, and yields a more enjoyable bowl.

Sifting

Sifting the matcha is a must in my opinion. I have my eye on one of these matcha sifters, but in the mean time, I have been experimenting with different methods.

Most of the time I use one of these brew baskets to sift the matcha as I go, using the chashoku as a paddle, sort of a back and forth sweeping motion. It works quite well. The baskets are durable and easy enough to rinse or wash afterwards.

I read about using the chasen to break apart the clumps and sift the matcha in the bowl, using the tines in a chopping motion, kind of like you're preparing lines of coke. This way is a little quicker, but the matcha tends to stick to the tines.

Either method produces the same, positive results in the end.

Nai XIang Oolong (Milk Oolong)

Salsero, peach that he is, sent me a good sized sample of this Nai Xiang oolong from Tea Spring. It is a Taiwanese oolong characterized by a distinct milk fragrance.

The dry leaves smell great, very sweet, moderately floral, milky, thick, and rich. The leaf clusters are large. I like that.

My gong fu skills have become sloppy. I ignore what the tea tries to tell me and instead try to force the results I want, regardless of how the tea may or may not be capable of performing, so I make a conscious effort to focus and be more careful.

I rinse the leaves to wake 'em up a bit and steep for 45 sec. It isn't all that sweet, well, not as sweet as the aroma hinted at, but it indeed tastes milky. There is a faint note of something green in the finish. I held back on the second steep, thinking now that the leaf clusters had opened it wouldn't need more time, but I was wrong, and the second infusion was too weak. The third steep was light, sweeter, and just a hint of milkiness. The fourth had a little more life in it. The liquor through each infusions is consistantly pale green.

I love three leaf clusters; I am a sucker for them.

I remember Salsero's note that came with the tea, "It tastes like milk. So what?" He has a point, but I liked it, more than other Formosan oolongs I've tried. It was fragrant, pleasant, and straitforward.

Seiryu Ippuku Wan

My new tea cup from Zencha, made by Yamane Seigan (click on the link for a brief interview and biography of the artist).

"Making pottery is a means to be a vacuum rather than a way to express myself."

This is my first Hagi-yaki. Hagi-yaki is a form of Japanese pottery that began just prior to the Edo period. During Hideyoshi Toyatomi's invasion of Korea in the 1590's, he ordered a Hagi daimyo, Mori Terumoto to bring back two Korean potters, Yi Sukkwang and Yi Kyung to establish kilns in Hagi. This form was also called Kourai, Korean pottery.

I think it is one the most beautiful cups I've seen. It reminds me of Starry Night. Like looking at twilight.

In case anyone's wondering how to care for Hagi-yaki:

• When using it for the very first time, rinse and let is soak in water over night to remove any dust or smells from the packing
  
• Before each use, let it sit and absorb water to prevent tea from soaking into it and causing tea stains.
  
• Do not microwave.
  
• Avoid leaving food or liquids high in acid, oil or alcohol in it for extended periods of time in it.
  
• After rinsing, dry throughly before storing. Hagi-yaki absorbs water, and improper storage may cause molding.
  
  

Update: I Googled Yamane Seigan and found another interesting link here. I love being able to attach a name and a face to my tea ware. I looked around and Yamane-san seems quite fond of the blue glaze, which they have come to call Seigan blue.

Roy Fong Tea Class

Did you miss me? It feels good to be back at it again.

On January 30th, The Republic of Tea brought Roy Fong to our store to teach a tea class for employees. He sources their higher quality teas, including the ones that were offered exclusively to us.

I was like a kid before Christmas all day, waiting for the class to start.

Roy Fong was great. He was friendly, funny, and humble, quiet; he kept to himself before the class started. But mostly he was a Tea Guy, not unlike my fellow tea bloggers and tea chatters and myself. Throughout the class he was asked the same questions we are all asked, "What do you think about tea bags?" and "How do you feel about sweeteners?" and what not. He answered how most of us do: However you like your tea is great; there is no "right" way. But how 'bout you keep that nonsense away from my tea.

The class was only an hour and a half. He talked at first about the history of tea, its evolution from the Tang to Song to the Ming Dynasties. In the Song Dynasty, tea in China was not at all unlike Matcha, a carefully produced tea powder that was whisked in a bowl. It was the Ming Dynasty that brought us the full leaf tea we enjoy now. What I didn't know was that this change was brought about by the first Ming emperor, who was a peasant. He felt China had had enough of this pretentious, powdered poppycock, and it was time to move on to something else, something less wasteful.

Other tid bits I learned were from listening to how he pronounced certain words. He said yixing with a y instead of ee-shing, and long jing was long ching.

He also talked about different ways of tasting tea, holding the tea in your mout and dipping the tip of your tounge in it, or touching the tip of your tounge to the roof of your mouth then sipping tea. The idea being to expose different taste buds in different ways.

It was such a blast to just watch him. This was the first time I was able to have tea with another Tea Guy. I tried to absorb as much as I could. He was so casual, reaching into tins and picking out handfuls of tea.

We only had time for four of the six teas he brought.

Dragon Well

The leaves smelled more fruity than nutty. He brewed it gong fu style and mixed the first and second infusions into a sharing pitcher. The tea itself was light, fruity then vegetal, had ubiquitous elements I seem to taste in almost every Chinese green tea I try.

Silver Rain

This one suprised me. The leaves had notes of sugar of all things. He used hotter water than I do, 200 degrees. The tea was grasy, and there was something different, something I couldn't place; I only had a little tasting cup. My last sip I thought "milk."

Jasmine Jazz

It smelled like Jasmine. It tasted like Jasmine.

Moving on.

Sheng Puerh (Menghai?)

This was the last tea he did, and I'm glad he got to it. It was one of the teas that started it all. Roy must brew this better than I do, better than Bill did, and better than Curtis, the TRoT rep who sold it to us, because it didn't suck. That or its a different sheng pu.

There was a hint of camphor in the dry leaves. The tea was cooling, mild, pleasant, light; he purposely brewed it light, and I couldn't tell if further steepings would reveal the thoroughly harsh pu that I had previously encountered.

I did get to snag a picture of the wraping. Unfortunately I don't speak puerh wrapper. Can someone finally tell me what this tea is?

As I said, Roy was great. Republic of Tea on the other hand hasn't changed. After the class I spoke with the Minister of Education, and asked her why they were packaging a Formosan oolong as Wuyi. She said that was "interesting" and that she "would get back to me on that." Then she walked away to find someone else to talk to.

I will leave you with a short video of Roy talking about rinsing and gong fu.