Screen dump of Japanese tea characters

Hi, I think you got some mistakes there. The characters for gyokuro are correct. But then why are the characters from tamacha the same?

Koicha is also not correct. It should be 浓茶 (thick tea). But my computer only uses chinese simplified character set. Here is the proper character again:

Hi-- I've lurked for a while... it's more the Japan stuff that I know: my research, as an anthropoogist, is in tea ceremony, and most "tea-people" (tea ceremony professionals) in Japan drink very nice leaf-tea when not in the tea room.

Niisonge caught the error with "tama-cha" vs. "gyokuro(-cha)." Tamacha should have just two characters (玉茶) The second one on the screen-dump should be deleted, leaving the third character, cha, for "tea." Gyokuro is "tama" plus one more character, and -cha is often affixed (玉露茶)

Niisonge also caught the use of the wrong character for koicha, and his citation shows the (unsimplified) character used in Japanese (濃茶). The first character in the original screen dump, the wrong character (厚), is read both "atsui" and "koi," but is not used to write koi-cha. This is the kind of "spelling" error that native-writers of Japanese frequently make. (If you mispell "geneaology" as "geneology," you still get lots of hits on an English-language browser... )

"Koi-cha" is the right *reading*, but it's *"usui-cha" that is messed up: It should be "usu-cha" (delete that i ) (The dashes in the romanization just help you see the parts of the word, don't let me confuse you.)

Space Cowboy is right about the age of the bushes, though the tea dealers I know also talk about the use of shade: that the bushes for koi-cha (thick tea) are kept in shade longer each day. For a beginner, the key difference is that usu-cha (thin tea) has far less tea powder in relation to the amout of water... and koi-cha (thick tea) is prepared much thicker... you kind of wait for the tea to crawl down the side of the bowl into your mouth. In terms of ritual, thin tea is

*far* more frequently prepared, and thick tea is usually something only elite practitioners (or their students) ever have occasion to drink. In the thick-tea ritual, a bowl of tea is shared, each guest wiping the lip of the bowl carefully before sending it to the next guest, while thin-tea is served (usually) one bowl per guest.

Thick-tea is quite a bit more expensive than the thin tea, and you use about 5 times as much per serving as well... The thick-tea leaf is prepared so that it is less bitter (important when drinking the tea so thick!). Many elite tea practitioners say that when serving *thin* tea to a guest who is not used to drinking matcha (沫茶 powdered tea, also romanized maccha), it is ideal to serve thin-tea made with the powder used for thick-tea-- because it is less bitter, easier to get used to. My friends have often sent me the powder for thick tea in the hopes that as I expose friends and students here in the US to powdered tea, they will have a nice first experience.

I dr> Thanks. All feedback is appreciated. I can't blame anything on typos.

Hi-- I've lurked for a while... it's more the Japan stuff that I know: my research, as an anthropoogist, is in tea ceremony, and most "tea-people" (tea ceremony professionals) in Japan drink very nice leaf-tea when not in the tea room.

Niisonge caught the error with "tama-cha" vs. "gyokuro(-cha)." Tamacha should have just two characters (玉茶) The second one on the screen-dump should be deleted, leaving the third character, cha, for "tea." Gyokuro is "tama" plus one more character, and -cha is often affixed (玉露茶)

Niisonge also caught the use of the wrong character for koicha, and his citation shows the (unsimplified) character used in Japanese (濃茶). The first character in the original screen dump, the wrong character (厚), is read both "atsui" and "koi," but is not used to write koi-cha. This is the kind of "spelling" error that native-writers of Japanese frequently make. (If you mispell "geneaology" as "geneology," you still get lots of hits on an English-language browser... )

"Koi-cha" is the right *reading*, but it's *"usui-cha" that is messed up: It should be "usu-cha" (delete that i ) (The dashes in the romanization just help you see the parts of the word, don't let me confuse you.)

Space Cowboy is right about the age of the bushes, though the tea dealers I know also talk about the use of shade: that the bushes for koi-cha (thick tea) are kept in shade longer each day. For a beginner, the key difference is that usu-cha (thin tea) has far less tea powder in relation to the amout of water... and koi-cha (thick tea) is prepared much thicker... you kind of wait for the tea to crawl down the side of the bowl into your mouth. In terms of ritual, thin tea is

*far* more frequently prepared, and thick tea is usually something only elite practitioners (or their students) ever have occasion to drink. In the thick-tea ritual, a bowl of tea is shared, each guest wiping the lip of the bowl carefully before sending it to the next guest, while thin-tea is served (usually) one bowl per guest.

Thick-tea is quite a bit more expensive than the thin tea, and you use about 5 times as much per serving as well... The thick-tea leaf is prepared so that it is less bitter (important when drinking the tea so thick!). Many elite tea practitioners say that when serving *thin* tea to a guest who is not used to drinking matcha (沫茶 powdered tea, also romanized maccha), it is ideal to serve thin-tea made with the powder used for thick-tea-- because it is less bitter, easier to get used to. My friends have often sent me the powder for thick tea in the hopes that as I expose friends and students here in the US to powdered tea, they will have a nice first experience.

I dr> Thanks. All feedback is appreciated. I can't blame anything on typos.

Welcome to the group. I make a good straight man. Thanks for the illiterati corrrections. When I go to a web site and see spelling and grammar errors it makes me wonder. And in this case I'll never know till corrected by someone who knows the language. I included thick and thin and was hoping for more elucidation. I haven't heard from our resident Japanese expert Kuri or folklorist Crymad in awhile and I find it interesting who lurks in this group.

Jim

PS Hey Niis> Hi-- I've lurked for a while... it's more the Japan stuff that I know:

...crew cut...

Hey Space Cowboy, no problem. Just about all of the information I get comes from published tea books - with the tea terms in them. So if I see some mistakes, I raise a question, or correct it.

Actually, in Chinese too, they use the same characters for thick and thin tea.

浓茶 (thick tea) - which in english we take to mean "strong tea".

Then, there is 淡茶, (thin tea) - which in English we call "weak tea".

But in english I still like to call my tea thick or thin. It all goes to way back in Chinese history sometime - when they actually drank the leaves in a powder with the tea broth (whatever). If you added more tea powder to the water, it was thick, and if you added less, it was thin.

Just think of porridge. You can have watery porridge if you add a lot of water, then it would be pretty thin. Or you can add little water, and make it pretty thick.

Hey Space Cowboy, no problem. Just about all of the information I get comes from published tea books - with the tea terms in them. So if I see some mistakes, I raise a question, or correct it.

Actually, in Chinese too, they use the same characters for thick and thin tea.

浓茶 (thick tea) - which in english we take to mean "strong tea".

Then, there is 淡茶, (thin tea) - which in English we call "weak tea".

But in english I still like to call my tea thick or thin. It all goes to way back in Chinese history sometime - when they actually drank the leaves in a powder with the tea broth (whatever). If you added more tea powder to the water, it was thick, and if you added less, it was thin.

Just think of porridge. You can have watery porridge if you add a lot of water, then it would be pretty thin. Or you can add little water, and make it pretty thick.

Yes, you are right. That's because, in the West, tea drinkers were originally taught to use infused tea, from whole leaves, and to drink the liquid infusion. They never actually ate the leaves - like in powdered form; i.e., consume tea in a powdered infusion in water .

So they would only call the resulting infusion of steepd tea either strong or weak.

But I think in the West, were tea drinkers exposed to the Song dynasty style of drinking tea in a powdered infusion, they would also call it thick or thin tea - not as strong or weak.

But today, in modern Chinese, no matter if the tea is a powdered infusion - where you consume the leaves with the tea, or if it's steeped tea - it's still just referred to as thick or thin tea.

I'm not aware of any Chinese tea powder on this side of the Pacific that could be consumed as such. I've seen Chinese green tea powder on Ebay but the pictures looks more like fines. I could see the use of throwing some in a cup of hot water and consuming the whole brew. I do this with leaf but end up usings my lips and incisors as a filter.

Jim

niis>...skimmed...

Yeah, you're right. I haven't seen any Chinese tea powder here either. But I haven't asked around yet either. There are a lot of chinese cookbooks that call for tea powder as an ingredient, but they don't say where to get the green tea powder from.

But anyway, you could still make it yourself; the equipment still exists today. Just need to buy one of those stone mills.