The Silk Road

When I was 20 years old, I traveled the Central Asia. The ship took me to Shanghai from Osaka. I still remember my neighbor in the large second room was Estonian guy. He seemed to see his friend in Kyoto then on the way to Shanghai. Anyway the chance to meet him became to reason for me to close the country called Estonia. The summer in 2000 I visited Estonia, and it was my first trip to foreign country. At the time I really didn’t imagine I would go back Estonia very soon.
Ok I have to write about the Silk road this time. I guess I will write about Estonia in other day. When I was a kid, my parents took me an exhibition about silk road. So what is exactly Silk Road?? Some time it might be called as “East meets West”. In my opinion, it’s trade road to connect Asia to Europe. I guess you know the name Marco Polo. Thanks to my parents, I’m so interested in the silk road, and then promised for myself someday I traveled the silk road.
It was amazing. If you’re also interested, then please just take yourself to the great journey. I remember all of days in my journey. I started from Shanghai. My route was heading to the central Asia; Kazak, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Trukmen. Everyday little by little the faces of local people are changed. I mean the people of west coat China, their face is very similar to Japanese like me. But you move to west. Then everyday you will find difference in their faces. Anyway I can’t write everything about my experiences there. So I introduce the excellent blog about the central Asia. Her blog is in Japanese.But don’t worry, I promise you will really enjoy the pictures. She helped me a lot in Kazakustan. Thanks to her coordination, I could travel with satisfaction. I don’t know when I can travel silk road again. But whenever I feel dropping out my job, I’m always on her blog. It makes me remind of memoir in the central Asia.

http://yksilkroad.exblog.jp/m2006-07-01/

The Japanese old house

The couple of weeks ago, I visited one famous place in Saitama prefecture next Tokyo.
The city called Honkawagoe is well preserved old one. In my experience this type of house above picture is very rare to find around Tokyo. But it is near Tokyo. Kyoto & Kamakura are very popular among tourists. Honestly I really didn’t know anything of Honkawagoe. It is called as small Edo; Edo was Tokyo’s previous name. One of my colleagues from India taught me the place!!! So I decide to go there with my girl friend.
You know, learning culture is my favorite hobby. When I was an university student, I always traveled so many places. Many times my journey was boundary Japan.
My girl friend and me were really excited there. She likes taking photos and enjoying walking around. We really recommend you to visit there if you want to have small trip to learn Japanese old tradition; tea shops, sweat, clothes, pottery so on. Honestly Honkagwagoe is not big like Kyoto & kamakura. But still worth visiting. Here the above picture is a tea house. In inside there’s so many traditional potteries for selling. I’m sorry that I can’t show you the inside of this house. I just didn’t take photo the inside. Anyway there we enjoyed a lot of arts. Of course Japanese green tea and Matcha are available. If you have an opportunity to visit Tokyo, please check “Honkawagoe” in web search engine. It’s near Tokyo!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kawagoe

Pick leaves up three times per a year

Basically the green tea plants farmer, they are going to pick leaves up three times per a year. The fist period is approximately in the end of April to the end of May. The most excellent green tea is made from leaves in this period. Please just imagine the tea trees (guess it looks like bush having many leaves). They pick up the top places of trees that indicate buds. Maybe you can think like it’s not good to take buds to keep tree’s long life. But it is worry that we don’t need to think about. The green tea’s tree is said to have very strong life. So from this first picking, the tea is called the first tea or new tea. These buds have nutrition preserved from Autumn to Spring, including very good flavor and taste!! You know in Kyoto, Gyokuro and Tencha (high grade green tea) is only made from the first tea. It means there’s only one time to pick leaves for the high grade teas.

Tea has some stories and for eternal life!?

I've just checked a couple of articles about the history of Japanese Green tea. It seems like coming from China in the beginning of 9th century by one Japanese monk who learned Buddhism there. His name is Saicho. He brought tea seeds. Still it's not sure where Japanese green tea came from. There are two places as candidates. One is Yunnan, south west China. And other is Assam, north east India. In those days, Green tea was for noble men. In China, the emperor brewed tea as medicine. As I wrote in this blog, once upon time green tea was used as medicine.
So why did emperors at ancient China look for medicine? Because they looked for ageless & eternal life. It means they are crazy to get medicine for that. One of such a medicine, it seemed to be a tea. Some time tea would help emperors hangover. Sometime help hangover for generals. Anyway when Saicho took it to Japan, Japanese general liked to brew Green tea because his hangover was removed. This was one of story which green tea was spread among Japanese warriors called Samurai. Monks grew tea plants in temple's garden. They used tea for medicine and meditation. Because it was believed to effect clearing mind, keeping concentration and protecting from falling asleep. So in ancient time, first tea had spiritual role much more than drinking.

The long long way to drink excellent green tea in the beginning of tea history

Once up time, Matcha(Powdered Green tea) was kept in a big pottery pot. If the shogun(Japanese general, highest rank worrier among Samurai) asked Tea master(茶人sajinn), they picked up leafs from the pot. Nowadays the quality of leaf is getting better and better. So we don’t need to wait for maturing leafs, putting then into pot so long. Actually it was not available soon because the taste was bitter. For example, leafs were picked up in April & May. Then put in the pot till November. They had to wait for a half year approximately.
By the way, this pot is called Ruson Tsubo made the clay from Luzon near Philippine. It was brought in 16th century. The pot is light. And maybe the density of clay is quiet low. It means this pottery has good air through condition. This was good for leafs to be matured.
For example there’s wooden box to mature them. If you get your hands into leafs, it’s warm. You can feel it. Leafs are alive.
We drink without thinking the history of tea. However improving tea quality is long long way. The ancient tea masters had to put many efforts and their passion. This is one of reason that Japanese green tea is called as our tradition. How about visiting Kyoto to learn Japan culture and green tea history? I'm sure it fascinates you.

The art of Matcha mill

Now I'm going to explain about the Matcha mill. The weight of stone is approximately 10kg. Currently tea artisans are using 25kg. They scroll the mill on the way of anti clock (right to left). The bottom of upper stone (can't be seen in this photo. There two parts of stone on the flat stone plate) has so many edges. There’s 8thypes of edge lines to mince the leaf. The surface of lower stone also has such shapes. There’s a hole at the top and center of upper stone to pour leafs. Then scroll. The both of stone’s edge are flat. This flat place plays the role to mince leafs to 4microns. Finally the green tea power will come out the mill, then fall down to the plate. There’s rule to scroll; one cycle per second.
If you see the stones very carefully, the canter of upper is little bit getting dip: 0.5degrees down to the edge. Thanks to this dip, leafs can move out the stones. You know if you keep scrolling one hour (60 times * 60 minutes =3600 scrolls), then only produce 40g of Match. This is very hard to mass product.

After mincing leafs, Matcha is still alive. The green tea powder has its own expired day. If you drink Matcha which is over their expired day, the color and taste are not perfect. This is big depression for tea artisans. One of my acquaintances, He is a tea artisan in Kyoto. He wants to introduce real Japanese green tea to the world. Japanese Green tea has been already very famous in the world. However there are more things to introduce to the world.

One of My Favorite bottle Green Tea "Iemon"

Today I took this picture in our office. The quality of photo is very low taken by mobile phone's camera. Anyway every morning I drink Green tea. Sometime I buy this bottle. The name is Iemon. Exactly Iemon is Japanese old fashion name for man. You can see the name at the center of bottle written vertically: "伊右衛門". So why I like this bottle?? Of course taste is also one of the reasons. But the most favorite thing about it is just because of the reason for naming. It can be said this is marketing issue. Iemon was tea company's founder name. It was found in 18th century, and is keeping well preserved tradition. I've just been imaging how the founder wanted to produce excellent and improved green tea. It's almost art and Japanese culture!!! Anyway green tea reminds me of Japanese culture. Someday Green tea will play a very important role more than before to bridge Japan and oversea all over the world. I hope it is.

The color coordination

One of my colleague, she studies color coordination. She has a talent about colors relevant to website, business presentation, and total design. She is learning how colors are effecting our eyes and feeling. Colors seem to have their own meaning or image. So I asked her about Green. According to her, the color of green has images of peace, contentment etc. Hmm, it might be understandable for somebody loves nature. We can enjoy nature in forest, along river, and in mountains. So what can I image about nature?? I can imagine light green forest. So how do you feel in nature?? I feel relax and enjoy peaceful time because of the color and atmosphere. Of course such a feeling is up to person to person. This is just my opinion. The color of green gives the color that is restful to my eyes.

Matcha Latte in weekend

Sorry last couple of days I had been in busy for my job & private issues. This weekend was quiet peaceful and gave me a time to forget about my job. Thanks to my girl friends and ex-coworker, everything goes to fine. I enjoyed the movie called Da Vinci Code in a theater, then
chat in a cafe, drinking Matcha latte (not traditional way to enjoy green tea but nice and new fashion). Well at the moment which we spent in a cafe, it is usual, nothing special, just chatting.
However such a moment is because of the cafe and tea. These are quiet common but very important for us. Cafe and teas give us much opportunity. The place for waiting for somebody. The place for enjoying the taste of tea & coffee. The place for reading, having business meeting, and for relaxation so on. How Ken's green tea salon offer specialty for customer??
Anyway it has to be unique, and new (but keeps old fashion too) like this Matcha Latte.