The Wild Ancient Mountain Sheng Pu-Erh Bingcha is finished! Harvested per my commission, pressed, wrapped. Ready to ship. We will have it on Preorder soon.
A portion will remain in Asia for aging….
This just in: although Wuyi teas will take another month for the charcoal baking, Mr. Zheng, our Wuyi tea master, will break out some 12 year aged Dahongpao that he roasted and aged himself in a limited amount. We have to have some, of course.
No tea today in Hokkaido as I am done with tea procurement for the month. Everything else will trickle in.
Sensory analysis of a different kind: Hokkaido green onions and ramen, gallon size sake and sake from the snow mountain, Dorayaki that has a buttery croissant like crust and not too sweet an pan/red bean.
I ate too much good food everyday. Never liked others posting pointless food photos to gloat about what they ate so I rarely post, particularly on this blog, about food. Here, seasonality means bamboo shoots, bamboo leaf wrapped rice, tofu ten ways, enormous spring onions. Lots of desserts made with matcha a million kinds. Here they use real matcha of course, so forget the green tea ice cream etc you’ve had in the US. The only place I feel safe about having matcha pastries is my own teashop- because KoyamaEn matcha was used, not some glow in the dark green powder. Real, seasonal, local ingredients. A huge concept in the U.S. A matter of fact for the rest of the world.
The pool at the bottom most pic is the water pool traditionally reserved as the water used for making tea for the emperor. Here at Ginkakuji (Silver Pavilion Temple), every maple tree, raked sand structure, moss carpet, cool fragrant air, provides the utmost context for the contemplative aspect of tea. Tea is both mundane yet spiritual, sociable yet meditative, awakening yet calming. These dual benefits of tea at every aspect are why tea is so enduring for humanity through thousands of years.
A look at some sublime examples of wabi sabi teaware from Robert Yellin’s Gallery, whose impeccable sense rarely errs. How do I know? You want to scream, that’s how beautiful the pieces are. So I had to cool off with Baird Beer, now world famous, that Robert is part of. Best beer in Japan?