Whisking Matcha for Enjoyment at Home

Hello and happy Spring!  I'm going to be writing a series on the "Japanese Tea Ceremony" experience, known as Chanoyu or Chadō (the Way of Tea). But before we dive into that, I want to share how you can easily make and enjoy a bowl of matcha at home. 

And when I say bowl, I mean just that! In this style of drinking matcha, each person gets their own bowl of tea. I'll be making thin tea, called usucha. It's the frothy kind and it's amazing!

It's important to understand that there are many different schools of Chadō, and each has its own way of making tea. There are differences in how to whisk, the desired frothiness, etc. And yet each produces a beautiful and delicious bowl of tea. The school from Japan that I am associated with is Urasenke.  My local school is Issoan. Even though the instructions below are not for a tea ceremony, the style I've learned will show through.

In the picture above, you see a shaped "mountain" of matcha in a traditional tea caddy. Below are the typical implements: a bowl, whisk, scoop, tea caddy and a water ladle. You will not need all of these things.

What you WILL need: 

• A bowl with a wide enough bottom for the whisk to move freely. Something like a rice or cereal bowl.
• A measuring cup
• A mesh strainer
• Teaspoon
• Bamboo whisk 
• Matcha 

I recommend two investments for home enjoyment of matcha: A bamboo whisk (chasen) and good matcha. A reputable source available in the US is Ippodo. Please be careful where you buy your matcha and do not use cooking grade. You are ingesting the ground-up leaf and the flavor is intensified. You want the good stuff for drinking. Expect to pay $25-30/canister for a decent matcha.  See this site for more options. Also, don't buy large quantities and store the canister of matcha in a plastic bag with the air pushed out, in the freezer. 

To make your bowl of matcha:

1. Rinse your bowl with hot water, then dry it out.  This pre-warms the bowl and removes liquid that might cause the matcha to clump.

2. Place the mesh strainer over the bowl. Measure in a scant (less than full) teaspoon of matcha. Tap the strainer or use the back of a spoon to push the tea through. Straining the tea helps reduce lumps.

3.Now add between 1/4 and 1/3 cup of hot water, ~170 degrees Fahrenheit. Please do not use boiling water. When I remove my kettle from the heat source and take the lid off, it takes ~3.5 minutes to cool to the right temp.

4. Take your whisk and lightly press down any floating tea. Then move the whisk briskly in a straight up-and-down motion. (Other tea schools do this differently.)  See the video below. You do not need to press down hard on the whisk (that can break the tines). Placing your hand over the top of the bowl helps to steady it.

                                                                            5. Keep whisking until you see a thick foam forming.
                                                                            Keep going a wee bit longer.  Then move the whisk
                                                                            across the top lightly to pop any big bubbles.

                                                                            6. Set the whisk down and enjoy the tea! 
                                                                            Matcha is commonly enjoyed with a small sweet.

Notice how the foam gets thicker over time.  Keep going!

If your matcha froth isn't thick, try using a little more matcha, a little less water, or whisking a little longer.

PDX Tea: Opening, Documentary Fundraiser and Roasted Dong Ding

It is with much excitement that I share that PDX TEA has re-opened in a welcoming and tranquil new space in Portland! David Galli hosts tastings and educational events, as well as curating high-quality teas (for sale). Many of these teas have come from his travels. David is a good friend, and I know first-hand how lucky Portland is to have someone with his level of knowledge and tasting abilities to be part of our tea journeys. 

Last Sunday, several tea lovers gathered to taste charcoal roasted Dong Ding. We were able to enjoy three different roasting levels. We noticed how the tea shifted not only by roasting level, but also within the consecutive brews of the same tea. 

Roasting tea is a specialized skill. Often the tea roaster is a different person from the grower and also the tea maker. Roasting involves science (temperature, moisture levels), as well as sensory arts (the smell of the leaf, the feel of it in your fingers, the control of the heat).  After a tea is roasted, sometimes the roasters let the tea rest for awhile to mellow before selling it.   

There are different kinds of roasting. Below, David is showing an electric roaster. The Dong Ding tea we drank is a very special type, roasted over charcoals (they are banked with various levels of ash to manage the amount of heat). People who enjoy this type of tea  have concerns that the knowledge and skills of charcoal roasting are dwindling.  To that end, this tasting was a fundraiser for a project to make a Taiwan Tea Documentary, including charcoal roasting. Shiuwen Tai of Floating Leaves Tea is trying to raise funds for this project.  It's a very worth cause, and I have donated!  (Also note - Shiuwen is offering a 30% discount to my blog readers on the High Mountain Tea Sampler - see here.)

I look forward to many wonderful tea tastings at PDX Tea, and I wish all the best to the Taiwan Tea Documentary project!

Cooling the Water

It's HOT here in the Pacific Northwest.  We've had temps hovering around 100 degrees for three days. That's intense - especially for June and for a region where a fair number of folks don't have air conditioning. 

In these hot temps, I still drink hot tea. I choose teas that do best with cooler waters, often greens and especially Japanese greens, like sencha (ironically, in the photo above, I'm not drinking a Japanese green).

There are several ways to cool the water: Take it off the heat before it reaches a boil, let it sit off the boil before using, or - as shown above - use a cooling pitcher. The cooling pitcher (yuzamashi) is a common feature in sencha sets (also in Korean tea sets).

I'm not using a thermometer, so I'm guessing at the temperature.  I sense that it's cooled to around 160 degrees.  After pouring the cooled water into the pitcher, I generally pour off at about 30 seconds, adjusting on the second brewing, as appropriate (usually a wee bit longer).

I confess: I've brewed some senchas really poorly, and more times than I care to admit.  It's always because I've been distracted. This is a tea that requires your full attention.

Below: I'm decanting straight into my teacup, but it's also possible to use the water cooling pitcher as a serving vessel.  Note that the tea will continue to cool in the wide-mouthed vessel, so at this point (the tea is done brewing), you want to serve quickly.

You don't need anything fancy to cool the water.  You can even use a Pyrex measuring cup.

Experiment and find the right process for making yourself a great cup of green tea with cooler water.

Tea Flowers

My tea plant (Cami, get it?  Short for camellia sinensis) has been covered in tea flowers!  I took these photos several days ago; they're now starting to fade. I think tea flowers are beautiful and I like to bring them inside (see bottom photo).  Tea flowers are discouraged in commercial production because when the plant is producing flowers its energy is towards making fruit and seeds rather than producing more leaf. (Most tea plants are propagated by slips (cuttings) rather than seeds). On my balcony, I love to let my tea plant go crazy with blossoms.  Enjoy the photos.

Weigh Station for Tea Picking in Rwanda

Tea picker is sorting tea

Getting tea from the field to the factory is a matter of skill and speed. When tea is picked by hand, it's most often the hand of a woman. When she has picked her quantity for the day, she proceeds to the weigh station.  The tea is weighed and noted in the ledger for payment, then hastily transferred to the factory for processing to begin. It's a special privilege to happen upon a weigh station. If you're not there at just the right time, you'll miss it!  I've been lucky to witness this twice, once in Darjeeling and just recently in Rwanda.

Enjoy these photos!

People were as interested in us as we were in them

Friendly smiles

Just look at the backdrop to this scene, so green and lush

This little girl totally photo bombed me!  She did this several times, I loved it!

The tea waits in bags for transport to the factory

Me with the Tea!

Happy Girls Day! (Japan)

Happy Girls Day!  This Japanese celebration, on the third day of the third month, celebrates girls with special foods, prayers for their growth and happiness, and a long tradition of collectible dolls. 

The sweet above is made with white bean paste (sweetened with sugar) and in the center, red bean paste. For those who have never tried a traditional Japanese wagashi sweet, these are really delicious! This is my first attempt at a Girls Day sweet.  This is meant to be eaten just before enjoying a bowl of matcha tea (powdered green tea).

You can read more about Hinamatsuri (Girls Day, also called Dolls Festival) here.

For those of you interested in the Japanese Tea Ceremony, notice the word in the background of the photo, Harmony or Wa. I have had this piece of artwork (from Kelly Rae Roberts) for some time, since long before I began studying the tea ceremony. It just occurred to me today to make the connection. It seems that Harmony has been an important concept in my life for some time! 

Wa is one of the four tenants upon which Chado, the Way of Tea, is built. The four are Wa (Harmony), Kei (Respect), Sei (Purity), Jaku (Tranquility).

Camellia Sinensis with Effusive Blossoms

As you know, "tea" comes from the camellia sinensis plant.  And here's what that plant looks like, in case you have not had the pleasure to see one.  This plant came to me as a gift from Marmalady about three years ago and, thanks to the green thumb of the DH, has been thriving.  This year it bloomed effusively.

"Cami", as I call her, has been living for the past year on our north balcony.  The plant seems to be thriving within a large pot (I think this is pot #3), well-drained soil and the level of light in that space. It's not a full day of sun.  We had Cami on the south balcony for a bit and it was too much direct sun. The DH also provides an occasional fertilization and has done some shaping of the plant, as well. 

If you have a tea plant that is doing well, what tips can you share for its healthy growth?

Join Me at Tea's Me - Hillsboro, Oregon

My family at Tea's Me

Please Join Us! 

Sunday, September 21st

Tea's Me in Hillsboro, Oregon

2 pm

Afternoon Tea

Tea 101 Class

$25 (cash or check)

RSVP to (503) 547-8617

I'm delighted to be partnering with Julie of the Tea's Me to offer a Tea 101 class. Julie will provide a delicious afternoon tea menu and of course a pot of tea! I will discuss the history of tea (fascinating and scandalous!), types of tea and photos from around the world, tips for brewing, a bit of etiquette and my forecast for tea's future. Please join me!

My Brew This Morning

I have a mix of folks who read this blog...first, of course, there's Mom and other family and friends.  :-)  Then there are people who enjoy Afternoon Tea.  In addition,  some readers  are interested in Chinese or Japanese style tea.  And then there are the "all of the above" readers.  I try to write about a mix of topics, to hit on something interesting for everybody now and again.  

Today's article is for those of you who are interested in dipping your teapot in the water of "small pot" or "gong fu" style brewing.  I wanted to show how easy it is to get started. This is how I brewed this morning. (Here's another similar posting.)  I'm brewing an Alishan tea (a high mountain oolong, very aromatic).  I pre-warmed this small little porcelain pot in a bowl and poured out the liquid into the bowl so that the pot could sit in the bath and stay warm while it brewed.  The towel is used to blot the bottom of the teapot before I pour.  I'm not using a serving pot here (also called a "fairness pot") because I'm pouring straight into my cup.  That's it!

And then again, there's always more. A few tips:
* This style of brewing uses a lot more tea and less water (in proportion) than a typical large teapot.  That means the steeping happens fast and you'll want to pour off quickly.  I typically pour off the first brew between 30 seconds and 1 minute, depending on the tea.

* These little pots each have their own pouring quirks.  Play around until you know how to minimize drips.  And keep a towel handy.  Drips happen.

* For a starter pot, I suggest glass or porcelain.  That way, you can use it with a variety of teas.  

* In the brewing style above, I will generate a fair bit of water in my small bowl quickly and need to dump it into the sink or a larger container.

* Be sure to look at the leaf - both dry and wet.  And smell the tea.  These things will enhance your enjoyment.  

* Try to brew in this style when you can focus on the experience.

* Just Go For It!  The spirit of gong fu brewing is to practice,  learn and improve.

What other questions do you have or what other tips would you give?

Great Video on Chinese Tea Brewing

This is a really great video about Chinese Tea brewing.  Stay with it after the Food Curated logo.  At 9 minutes in, he talks about bowl style tea brewing.  Click the image below to launch the video.  Enjoy and let me know what you think!!

DiversiTEA

DiversiTEA

One of the things that fascinates me about tea is its diversity.  In the picture above (from a recent Wu-Wo gathering), I sampled (left to right) Bai Hao oolong, Dong Ding (traditional style) oolong, Matcha powdered tea, and charcoal roasted Dong Ding oolong.  The color, aroma, flavor, and mouth feel of each tea was unique.  I love this range of experiences!

More on Bowl-Style Brewing

Preparing to brew bowl style

Sometimes things just come together. I had been thinking about my time in Taiwan and experiences with bowl-style brewing (also sometimes called "Grandpa" style, at least in the US). Shiuwen of Floating Leaves had recommended bowl-style for the  Hong Shui (red water) tea  I had been drinking. Then I received some tea from Global Tea Hut that also recommended bowl-style brewing!

Today I had the opportunity to share tea with friends and tried out this style of brewing again.  It's fun and straight-forward.  However, I learned an important lesson.  Use LESS tea than you would if brewing gong fu style.  I overdid it on our second tea and we had quite robust brews.

Some tips for brewing this style:
* Prewarm the bowls by pouring in hot water and then pouring off.
* Have a waste water bowl (any large bowl will do) nearby for the pouring off.
* Use less tea than you think you might need!  A trial run in the bowls you plan to use will help with this!  I got it half right.  I had done a trial, but in different bowls.  I had the proportions way off.
* Engage all your senses.  This type of brewing is very intimate with the tea.

Here's more on this topic from those who know far more than I:
Floating Leaves (blog)
A Tea Addict's Journal (blog)
Global Tea Hut (video; Please note that the brewer, Wu De, has brewed thousands of bowls of tea.  Use this as a general guide and don't compare yourself.)
"Big Bowl Tea" pictures and a bit of history (news article)

Let me know if you give this style of brewing a try.  I'd love to hear about it!

Hong Shui (Red Water) Tea, Bowl Style

I recently re-opened some tea that had been resting for several months. I brought it back from Taiwan about a year ago.  It's called Hong Shui (Red Water).  This tea is highly oxidized with a bit of a roast (to increase the shelf life). I think it's yummy!  Shiuwen, of Floating Leaves Tea suggested that I try brewing it "bowl style".  Good timing, as this brewing style had been on my mind.

"Bowl Style" is very  simple.  Choose a bowl (a rice bowl works great) that you can drink from directly, but isn't giant.  Add leaves in the bottom, pour hot water, let steep for a bit and enjoy.  Repeat.  Above, I'm using a summer-style Japanese tea bowl.  It doesn't have to be a special tea bowl.  Find something you have that works.

This Red Water tea is rolled into a ball during processing.  The leaves open as they steep.  It's fun to watch, and this brewing style allows for a great view.  Above, first steeping after a minute.  The leaf is still fairly tight.

 Second steeping, just after pouring hot water. Notice how much the leaf has opened.

One of the things I love about this brewing style is the intimacy with the leaf.  It literally engaged all my senses.  Visually, I get the best view of what's happening during the steeping process. When I drink the tea, my nose is deep in the bowl and the aroma envelopes me.  The taste of the tea changes from steeping to steeping, and I even got to chew on a few leaves as they slipped into my mouth in the early steeping.  (Once opened fully, they stick together in the bottom of the bowl.)  That counts for touch as does playing with the leaf to unfurl it fully. You can't see it very well, but in the last photo, I'm showing some unrolled leaf.  And finally, most surprising was the connection to sound.  It was magical!  After the leaf unfurled, when I would tip the bowl up to sip, I heard this little gurgling sound, like the movement of a gentle spring, as the water navigated the leaf terrain and made it to my mouth.  I loved it!

Patience (for Me) and Patient Tea

Rustic teacup with pu-erh, waiting patiently for me to put down the camera

Patience is NOT my middle name.  But it is the name of this cup.  I procured it (from J-Tea International in Eugene, OR) nearly three years ago.  I haven't used it until this week.  The cup and I were patiently waiting for the right time and the right tea.  I've dedicated the cup to shou pu-erh.  The cup is a delight to hold.  It's textural and the glaze makes a very interesting shiny pattern.  Rocks are visible in the form, giving it a very earthy feeling.  

Over the years, I've been working on the patience thing.  While not my nature, it is something I'm trying to cultivate.  Tea is a good teacher.  Some teas are "patient" in that they do well when steeped multiple times.  They open themselves, give more, blossom.  Pu-erh teas and may oolongs tend to be very patient.  These teas ask me, "How do you respond when you are repeatedly 'steeped'?"  Do I get better with each trial?

Oh, tea, I am your student.

What is Dim Sum?

Do you enjoy an occasional lunch of Chinese dim sum?  It's a tasty and fun experience, with its historical roots and modern day practice involving tea.  Tea is always offered, in addition to a wide range of small plates.  Typical foods include dumplings, steamed buns, turnip cakes and egg tarts. 

From wikipedia:

"Eating dim sum at a restaurant is usually known in Cantonese as going to "drink tea" (yum cha, 飲茶), as tea is typically served with dim sum...  Dim sum is usually linked with the older tradition from yum cha (tea tasting), which has its roots in travelers on the ancient Silk Road needing a place to rest. Thus teahouses were established along the roadside. Rural farmers, exhausted after working hard in the fields, would go to teahouses for a relaxing afternoon of tea. At first, it was considered inappropriate to combine tea with food, because people believed it would lead to excessive weight gain. People later discovered that tea can aid in digestion, so teahouse owners began adding various snacks."

The fun part, aside from the food, is the action.  Often, the food is brought around on carts and you get to pick what you want.  (Sometimes you can order from a checklist.)  It's ideal to share the food among the group, and the giant lazy susan shown above is both practical and entertaining.

I recently had dim sum with my tea friends and we had three pots of tea going.  The quality of tea in dim sum restaurants varies greatly, but we're pretty picky. (No luke-warm jasmine tea bags for us.)  We brought three varieties of tea to enjoy with the meal.  A nicely done jasmine, a bai hao (oriental beauty) oolong and a shou pu-erh.

My favorite way to end the meal is with an egg tart.  It's like a miniature custard pie.

Thanks to a friend's google search, I learned that dim sum literally means "touch the heart". The idea traditionally is that dim sum was a snack.  You would eat just enough to quiet the hunger, but not to stuff yourself.  Today, however, it's turned into a meal.  (Reminds me of the afternoon tea evolution, as well.)

Eating vegetarian at a dim sum restaurant is challenging, but not impossible.  Tip:  Watch for the bok choy or Chinese broccoli and ask for green beans with black bean sauce (request no fish sauce).

If you're interested in Dim Sum at home, check out this great book, Dim Sum: The Art of Chinese Tea Lunch, by Ellen Leong Blonder.   

So tell me - Is dim sum  new to you?  What intrigues you?  Or - where is your favorite dim sum place; what's your favorite treat?

What is Yerba Mate and How Do I Make and Drink It?

A formal mate gourd and the loose leaf brand my friend prefers

I am very happy to co-author this blog post with my good friend, AM.  I recently had the wonderful opportunity to learn about and drink yerba mate with her family and some other tea friends.  Yerba mate is the plant from which the beverage "mate" is made.  While this is indeed an herbal (it's not from the camellia sinensis tea plant), it's a bit of an anomaly in the herbal world.  It contains caffeine - or to be technical, a chemical compound that some believe is caffeine and others believe is close but not the same.  Either way, it contains a stimulant and should be sipped with that in mind.  I find the beverage to be savory and filling.  It's flavor is a complex blend (to me, anyway) of vegetal, herbal and a tiny pinch of mint.

I am happy to share the rest of this blog post with you, written by AM who is from Argentina, one of the South American countries where yerba mate is part of many people's life.  Enjoy!

Mate is an infusion made with yerba mate and drunk all over southern South America (Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and southern Brazil mainly). Yerba mate is a large bush with bright green leaves that grows in warm, humid climates. You may have seen it here in the US in the form of tea bags or as iced tea. In Argentina, the traditional way is to drink it communally out of a hollowed out and dried gourd, with a metal straw.

A less formal gourd, beautiful in its simplicity

The way it works is this: the host or the person who decides to make mate (in my parents' house, it's almost always my dad) fills the mate (the hollowed out gourd is called the mate) with yerba mate (about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way up usually) and then, before pouring the hot water in the mate for the first time, you need to add a splash of cold water (a teaspoon or so), to settle the leaves and prevent them from burning. Then you fill the gourd with hot water on the verge of boiling. The host drinks the mate with the straw until there's no liquid left. This is done rapidly, usually within a minute or two. The host pours water in the mate again and sometimes drinks the second one as well. The reason for this is that the first pour (and even the second) tends to be very strong. The host pours the next mate and hands it to a guest, who drinks it rapidly (within three minutes usually) and returns it to the host. The host refills the mate and hands it to the next guest. The order is determined depending on where people are sitting. (It proceeds in order, in any direction, from the place where the host sits. Mate can move clockwise or counterclockwise. The host decides). The mate then moves around the table until it's the host's turn to drink again. The host is the only person to pour water into the mate.

The mate drinking circle continues until people don't want to drink anymore. At any time, you can say "thank you" and drop out of the mate drinking. The host continues serving until people no longer want to drink. If the infusion gets too weak, the host may decide to change the yerba mate and start anew with fresh yerba mate.

Don't move the straw!  That stirs up the leaf and you want it to stick in place

Yerba mate is green and is a mix of dry, often powdered, leaves and twigs. The flavor is intense, herbal and somewhat bitter. For most people, it's an acquired taste. Like tea and coffee, it has a stimulant effect.

The usual times to drink mate is in the morning, with breakfast, or as an afternoon break with pastries or cookies to go along with it. Some people drink it in parks, beaches and during road trips. In Argentina, you can easily get hot water for your mate-making needs in gas stations. 

Have you enjoyed mate?  How about in the traditional way?

What Is Oolong (Wulong) Tea?

Ti Guan Yin tea in Muzha, Taiwan

What is oolong tea?  This is perhaps the most difficult Tea 101 topic I've written.  The tea is not one tea, but rather a range of hundreds (maybe thousands?) of teas that range between light and fresh to dark and roasty.  Technically, oolong tea spans the broad chasm between a green and a black.  Oolongs vary in many factors, but fundamentally, the variation is based on the amount of oxidation that the leaf undergoes in its process, from ~10% up to 75 (perhaps 85)%.  Factor in the local growing conditions, the tea farmer's skill and the tea maker's artistry, the roasting (if it applies), whether the tea is balled or twisted, the storage, the water, the brewer - and you have innumerable variations. 

The magic, to me, of oolong teas is in their diversity.  An oolong honors its provenance, forms a partnership with the tea farmer, yields to the hand of the tea maker and expresses itself uniquely for the brewer.  From the very green and minimally oxidized Baozhong, to the high mountain fragrant teas (like Alishan), to the highly oxidized Bai Hao oolongs to the deeply roasted traditional Ti Guan Yin or Wuyi teas, I hold that there is an oolong for everyone.  My tastes change based on the season and my mood, but I am generally drawn toward the heavily oxidized and/or roastier versions.  But wow how I appreciate the heavenly aromas or creamy mouth feel of others.

Baozhong oolong tea in Pinglin, Taiwan

Oolong tea processing originated in China, possibly the Wuyi region.  Today, Taiwan joins China in production of incredible oolong teas. (Some people believe the best oolongs are from Taiwan, but this is a highly personal choice.  I find great teas from both China and Taiwan.)  I had the wonderful opportunity to tour Taiwan last May and I've been blogging about it off and on, and will continue to do so.  The photos in this post are from that trip.

Oolong teas are often (and I find best) brewed in gong fu style.  This style of brewing invites us to slow down and be with the tea, and with our sipping companions.  (Here is a simple primer on one gong fu method.)  You may have heard of those tiny yixing pots; those are perfect for Gong Fu brewing, but porcelain and glass work well, too - as does a gaiwan.

Tell me, my tea friends, do you enjoy oolong teas?  If so, which ones and why?  And if you're just beginning to explore this style, please feel free to ask me questions.  I am by no means an expert, but I am a diligent student and can share what I've learned from those far more experienced than I, and from my sipping experiences.  And that sipping is the best way to explore and learn!