Tag: sencha
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The Two Faces of Issaku
At the Portland Tea Festival in July (of this year, the time of this writing), Oolong Owl dragged me to a Japanese tea vendor booth. This was markedly weird for two reasons: one, the Owl rarely dragged—more like, prodded. Two: it was a Japanese tea vendor. I always assumed she was just a puerh stan.…
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A Kazuo Kit of Sencha from the Land of Bears
Let’s get right to the point, I’ve been a fan of the sencha brand, Mellow Monk, for years. Pretty much since the early days of my tea blogging career. The only one who seemed unaware of this, however . . . was Mellow Monk.
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Japanese Style Green Tea . . . From Australia
Australian Tea Week, Day 3: “Japanese Style Green Tea . . . From Australia” I received the subject of today’s blog from this fingergun-toting, doughnut-destroying badass. This is Naomi Rosen; no, she’s not Australian. But she could certainly pass for one. She’s the purveyor of Joy’s Teaspoon. Aside from selling some really good teas, she could also…
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Hugs, High-Fives, and Farmer Style Sencha
A couple of years ago—on a visit to the Jasmine Pearl Tea Merchants shop— I tried a Japanese tea (that wasn’t sencha) that just . . . blew me away. It was a black tea blended with yuzu rind. Yes, the Japanese orange. When I described it to people, all I could muster was, “It’s…
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Several Cups of Kamairicha
Kamairicha literally means “pan-fired tea” in Japanese. I first tried it a year ago, and I dug it. I even wrote a poem about it. The less spoken about that, the better. Moving on . . .
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Oolong for the Old Otaku
I have always had a fascination with Japan for as long as I can remember. The first seeds of wonder were planted by early-80s dubbings of Robotech, and continued on well into my teens and twenties with samurai films galore. One could even say my otaku (read: fanboy) brain was hardwired to like everything Japanese…
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Throwing in the Towel after a Tea Fight
A couple of weeks back there, I attended a different sort of tea meet-up. The Portland Tea Enthusiasts’ Alliance and The Jasmine Pearl Tea Merchants joined forces for a movie night. The movie in question? Tea Fight (or “Dou Cha”) – a Taiwanese/Japanese co-production centering almost entirely around tea, and the people who drank it. One…
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Blending Tea and Fiction
To those that have been following the sporadic attempts to give this blog focus, you’ll know I’ve been experimenting with tea fiction. Sometimes with wondrous results…and other times with startling missteps. Train-wreck or not, I figured an exercise on how these yarns developed was worth exploration. Up until the “Great Vanishing” of September, I had…