Drinks in Japan: Japanese Green tea
In previous entry titled "Drinks in Japan: Sake ", I wrote that if you were asked to name a few Japanese drinks, things that would come to your mind maybe green tea, sake etc..
In another previous entry titled "People food for thought Part V:Sodas ", I wrote that in Japan, staple drink for many is tea. You can get packaged loose Japanese green tea leaves, you can get pre measured tea leaves packets, or you can get bottled tea.
Bottled green tea at stores is simply brewed tea without fructose. Bottled tea or green tea served at cafe here in the states seem to have more than brewed tea and almost always sweetened tea and nothing like real Japanese green tea you would taste in Japan.Popular bottled tea brand in Japan is called "Oi Ocha" by Ito En. You might be able to find them at Asian stores.
We drink a lot of tea in Japan. Drink tea after meals, drink tea after exercise, bring tea in thermos bottles when you go hiking or attend schools' sports festivals,or with your bento lunch box to work or school. Many families in Japan brew their tea by themselves using a tea pot.
Therefore, you might see some shopping cart at grocery stores in Japan that have some tea bottles, but mostly, you will find either pre measured packaged tea packet bags or specially packaged bag of loose tea in many shopping cart at grocery stores in Japan.You can buy tea leaves at grocery store but some people buy at temples. Some regions in Japan are well known for tea leaves.
If you had a chance to ride Japanese bullet train called "Shin kan sen" from Nagoya station to Tokyo (travel to north from mid region of Japanese main island), keep looking outside at about Shizuoka prefecture. You will see nice bright green tea field from Shin kan sen.
What is the green tea field look like? I came across youtube video talking about "shin cha", and you can see the bright green tea field.
Hand Picking Japanese Green tea
Like the video was talking about, "Shin cha" is available only limited time because "shin cha" is the very first harvest of Sencha tea leaves. It is hand picked and they are picking very young tender leaves. "Shin cha" is also known for strong grassy aroma unique to tea with less bitterness.
In the states, when you hear "Green tea", you imagine just one kind of tea. However, you will be surprised to find many different kinds of tea in Japan. I came across youtube video talking about different kinds of Japanese green tea. You can learn a bit more about each tea.
Japanese Green tea
So, Japanese Green tea is made from steamed young tea leaves, and depending on how it is processed, colors, taste are different. "cha" in Japanese means "tea".
Sen cha
Sencha is steamed and dried tea leaves and this is probably most popular tea in Japan.
Ban cha
Ban cha is made from hard leaves and stem after young tender leaves are picked for "Sen cha".
Gen mai cha
Gen mai cha is Ban cha (above) is mixed with roasted brown rice.
Mugi cha
This is the most popular tea during summer and it is served cold,not hot. Mugi cha is made from Barley.
Houji cha
This is roasted Ban cha (above).
Matcha
This is the tea used at tea ceremony.It is green powdered tea.New green tea leaves are made into powder form. The green tea for tea ceremony is called "matcha" in Japanese and, matcha tea is made by adding hot water to the powder and mix well with whisker made with bamboo to proper consistency. When properly whisked, you should see froth on top of the tea.
Matcha tea is very bitter and amount served in the cup is much less than you would drink in tea in the glass. You would find that if you attend at tea ceremony, you will be tasting bitter matcha tea along with very sweet sweets to balance out bitterness and sweetness.
When it comes to preparation of Matcha tea at the tea ceremony, you can find various ways depending on what style you would follow. Bellow is the youtube video where you can see how the match tea is prepared for tea ceremony. At the tea ceremony, you will wear kimonos.
Preparation of Matcha Green tea for tea ceremony
If you were a blog subscriber or reading this entry from Facebook, please click here to watch the video.
Now you know some of the tea you can find in Japan, and how Matcha green tea is prepared at the tea ceremony. Here is how our family brew our tea.
<How to brew & serve Japanese green tea>
First, we use tea pot called "Kyu su". "Kyu su" is traditional tea pot in Japan and it is made with ceramic. Popular tea pot style will be the one with side handle, but you can also find the one with top or rear handle for Japanese tea pot. Bellow is the "Kyu su" we use at our house. Ours is with side handle.
Japanese tea pot..
1. Boil the water and pour hot water to tea pot to warm the tea pot.
** At this time, there is no tea leaves in the pot.
2. Pour hot water out, and put spoonful of tea leaves into tea pot and pour hot boiling water in, and let it steep for about 30 seconds to 40 seconds
3. Pour some hot boiling water to each Japanese tea cup called "Yu nomi" to warm them up while the tea is being steeped.
Japanese tea cup "Yu nomi"..
4. Sway the tea pot a bit and pour the tea only a little to each tea cup, and then pour more alternating evenly from cup to cup. This is to serve the equal consistent tea flavor to everyone.
I have noticed that matcha green tea ice cream seems popular here in the states because you can find them at ice cream section and some Japanese restaurant offer the matcha green tea ice cream.
If you have ice cream maker, I think you could make it easy at home. I would imagine that all you need to do differently is probably add matcha green tea powder to basic vanilla ice cream recipe. And if you have no ice cream maker, then just get a box of vanilla ice cream and let it thaw a bit in fridge to the manageable texture, and add some matcha green tea powder to it and mix well and test it and if you like the flavor, you could put the green tea ice cream back into vanilla ice cream tub and freeze it.
Also, green tea frappuccino from popular coffee shop is probably mixture of cold milk,maybe maybe not heavy cream, and green tea powder, syrup or sugar and add some ice and puree some in blender. Basically I would guess it is sort of liquid form of green tea ice cream/smoothie minus yogurt and fruits. This is just my guess and I might be wrong. I have not tried it myself, but someday I would like to test it out to see if my guess is correct or not.
I love re-creating dishes I enjoyed at restaurants and figuring out what are in the dish is fun part of the process!
In another previous entry titled "People food for thought Part V:Sodas ", I wrote that in Japan, staple drink for many is tea. You can get packaged loose Japanese green tea leaves, you can get pre measured tea leaves packets, or you can get bottled tea.
Bottled green tea at stores is simply brewed tea without fructose. Bottled tea or green tea served at cafe here in the states seem to have more than brewed tea and almost always sweetened tea and nothing like real Japanese green tea you would taste in Japan.Popular bottled tea brand in Japan is called "Oi Ocha" by Ito En. You might be able to find them at Asian stores.
We drink a lot of tea in Japan. Drink tea after meals, drink tea after exercise, bring tea in thermos bottles when you go hiking or attend schools' sports festivals,or with your bento lunch box to work or school. Many families in Japan brew their tea by themselves using a tea pot.
Therefore, you might see some shopping cart at grocery stores in Japan that have some tea bottles, but mostly, you will find either pre measured packaged tea packet bags or specially packaged bag of loose tea in many shopping cart at grocery stores in Japan.You can buy tea leaves at grocery store but some people buy at temples. Some regions in Japan are well known for tea leaves.
If you had a chance to ride Japanese bullet train called "Shin kan sen" from Nagoya station to Tokyo (travel to north from mid region of Japanese main island), keep looking outside at about Shizuoka prefecture. You will see nice bright green tea field from Shin kan sen.
What is the green tea field look like? I came across youtube video talking about "shin cha", and you can see the bright green tea field.
Hand Picking Japanese Green tea
If you were a blog subscriber or reading this entry from Facebook, please click here to watch the video.
Like the video was talking about, "Shin cha" is available only limited time because "shin cha" is the very first harvest of Sencha tea leaves. It is hand picked and they are picking very young tender leaves. "Shin cha" is also known for strong grassy aroma unique to tea with less bitterness.
In the states, when you hear "Green tea", you imagine just one kind of tea. However, you will be surprised to find many different kinds of tea in Japan. I came across youtube video talking about different kinds of Japanese green tea. You can learn a bit more about each tea.
Japanese Green tea
If you were a blog subscriber or reading this entry from Facebook, please click here to watch the video.
So, Japanese Green tea is made from steamed young tea leaves, and depending on how it is processed, colors, taste are different. "cha" in Japanese means "tea".
Sen cha
Sencha is steamed and dried tea leaves and this is probably most popular tea in Japan.
Ban cha
Ban cha is made from hard leaves and stem after young tender leaves are picked for "Sen cha".
Gen mai cha
Gen mai cha is Ban cha (above) is mixed with roasted brown rice.
Mugi cha
This is the most popular tea during summer and it is served cold,not hot. Mugi cha is made from Barley.
Houji cha
This is roasted Ban cha (above).
Matcha
This is the tea used at tea ceremony.It is green powdered tea.New green tea leaves are made into powder form. The green tea for tea ceremony is called "matcha" in Japanese and, matcha tea is made by adding hot water to the powder and mix well with whisker made with bamboo to proper consistency. When properly whisked, you should see froth on top of the tea.
Matcha tea is very bitter and amount served in the cup is much less than you would drink in tea in the glass. You would find that if you attend at tea ceremony, you will be tasting bitter matcha tea along with very sweet sweets to balance out bitterness and sweetness.
When it comes to preparation of Matcha tea at the tea ceremony, you can find various ways depending on what style you would follow. Bellow is the youtube video where you can see how the match tea is prepared for tea ceremony. At the tea ceremony, you will wear kimonos.
Preparation of Matcha Green tea for tea ceremony
If you were a blog subscriber or reading this entry from Facebook, please click here to watch the video.
Now you know some of the tea you can find in Japan, and how Matcha green tea is prepared at the tea ceremony. Here is how our family brew our tea.
<How to brew & serve Japanese green tea>
First, we use tea pot called "Kyu su". "Kyu su" is traditional tea pot in Japan and it is made with ceramic. Popular tea pot style will be the one with side handle, but you can also find the one with top or rear handle for Japanese tea pot. Bellow is the "Kyu su" we use at our house. Ours is with side handle.
Japanese tea pot..
1. Boil the water and pour hot water to tea pot to warm the tea pot.
** At this time, there is no tea leaves in the pot.
2. Pour hot water out, and put spoonful of tea leaves into tea pot and pour hot boiling water in, and let it steep for about 30 seconds to 40 seconds
3. Pour some hot boiling water to each Japanese tea cup called "Yu nomi" to warm them up while the tea is being steeped.
Japanese tea cup "Yu nomi"..
4. Sway the tea pot a bit and pour the tea only a little to each tea cup, and then pour more alternating evenly from cup to cup. This is to serve the equal consistent tea flavor to everyone.
I have noticed that matcha green tea ice cream seems popular here in the states because you can find them at ice cream section and some Japanese restaurant offer the matcha green tea ice cream.
If you have ice cream maker, I think you could make it easy at home. I would imagine that all you need to do differently is probably add matcha green tea powder to basic vanilla ice cream recipe. And if you have no ice cream maker, then just get a box of vanilla ice cream and let it thaw a bit in fridge to the manageable texture, and add some matcha green tea powder to it and mix well and test it and if you like the flavor, you could put the green tea ice cream back into vanilla ice cream tub and freeze it.
Also, green tea frappuccino from popular coffee shop is probably mixture of cold milk,maybe maybe not heavy cream, and green tea powder, syrup or sugar and add some ice and puree some in blender. Basically I would guess it is sort of liquid form of green tea ice cream/smoothie minus yogurt and fruits. This is just my guess and I might be wrong. I have not tried it myself, but someday I would like to test it out to see if my guess is correct or not.
I love re-creating dishes I enjoyed at restaurants and figuring out what are in the dish is fun part of the process!
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