Xmas shopping for tea lover

I like to get mine straight from Japan, if nothing else it is more poetic and the prices are often better.

Aged Puerh

-- Mike Petro

I'd check with Upton's. I believe they sell a matcha, but methinks it is rather expensive. If you have any Chinatowns in your area, I'd take a gander there.

Hardly anyone drinks tea in my family, save my fiancee who drinks the oolongs which I consume (usually with loads of sweetner). She loves Genmaicha, so I'll probably get her a caddy of that. I'm asking for a nice Se Chung, or if I'm a very good little boy, I'll find some Buddha's Palm in my stocking.

-Mike

Itoen, Uji, o-cha, hibiki-an or Rishi would be good choices for Matcha... however can I ask if you have ever tried it? There are generally two types of Matcha, a thicker one and a thinner one. I prefer the thinner one myself, and even though I am a large green tea fan I'm not much for matcha to actually drink. I find it to be more of a ceremonial thing than an enjoyment.

You can find a number of nice greens (senchas and gyokuro's) that have green tea powder (matcha) mixed in that produce an enjoyable cup of tea.

- Dominic

Matcha is not something people normally drink, really... it's something that doesn't get used for much other than the tea ceremony and for making ice cream.

I use it for making ice cream, and I buy the packaged stuff from Upton's, which seems pretty good if expensive. If you have a specifically-Japanese grocery in a local Japantown you may be able to find the stuff, but typical Chinese groceries aren't going to carry it.

I have bought Matcha also at Tokyo Market in Montreal, and at the Japanese market ("Kunikuniya?") in Seattle. Arakawa's in Honolulu also used to carry it. All of these taste a little bit different... the stuff from Upton's seems a bit more flowery and works better in ice cream than the others I have tried. Maybe it was just fresher, I don't know.

--scott

snip

The place in Seattle is Uwajimaya. Close though! :) I haven't tried matcha yet really, the closest I've come are those little individual powdered green tea packets from Upton. Uwajimaya's doesn't look any less expensive than anybody else's though. They do have several (I think I remember three) grades. Generally they seem to carry the normal tea brands one would find in the market, not a brand specific to their store.

Melinda

Right now I am in the St. Louis airport but I am _supposed_ to be in my office in Virginia.

However, I do have a travel mug of Upton's Panyong Congou so it's not all bad.

--scott

Okay, Upton's has first of all a real matcha, which comes in a little black cardboard tin. They call it "Matcha Kumonosiro" and since I can't read kana, I assume that's what it says on the tin.

Upton's also has, in the little packets, something called "Kabuse powder." It's also a ground-up gyokuro tea, and it's a lot like matcha. That's the stuff that comes in the little packets. I found it less floral and more grassy-flavoured than the matcha kumonosiro. It didn't make as good ice cream in my opinion, but it was a lot less expensive.

Are they all in tins or is there some possibility of smelling before you buy?

--scott

Oh, yes, the stuff I got in Montreal was called "Matcha Matutoyo" for whatever that is worth, and it was also less floral and less 'sweet' than the matcha kumonosiro from Upton's. But it could have been stale too.

Melinda,

Remember the ButterFly brand of TGY you mentioned which was bushy? I looked and looked and couldn't find it. On my last trip to Chinatown I found the FL115 Butterfly brand of TGY in the 125g red tin:

The one you mentioned was the 250g FL111 Top Grade:

This one was enough to choke a pot. It had some broken leaf. The whole leaf was single and not attached with others to a stem. It was the Qing Xiang style or lightly roasted. At $4 it was a bargain.

Jim

PS I also found some YinHao green tea which actually looked green. It wasn't Jasmine flavored. It was small rolled leaf with plenty of white tip. It was a ripoff at $6 for a 500g tin. For those interested in in ergonometrics the inner lid which was plastic had a foil mated liner which provided an airtight seal. The tea never touches the plastic.

Mel> Melinda

Ah, I haven't done the green tea ice cream. I have an ice cream maker though, I should try it. Is yours comparable/significantly better than the commercial brand that are carried by some Asian stores? Can't remember the brand name.

No, they're all in tins. The Kabuse powder was very convenient and seemed to bled with the water readily,I have to say that. But it seemed too expensive for what I was looking for which was something for the health benefit of it. As an aside, I find it odd that I prefer hard martial arts like karate to the softer ones like Tai Chio r aikido, but I prefer the Chinese tea "ceremony" to the Japanese one. I think the Japanese one feels out of my reach to begin since one really needs a master teacher to learn it and it's so much more formal. But that impacts my purchase or non-purchase of powdered green teas I think. I don't buy matcha because then I'd need a whisk etc. etc. My mindset is probably leading me to miss out on something.

Melinda

Wow, $4 is really good. I haven't seen those tins but I will keep an eye out Jim, thanks. And the green sounds good too. I bought some of the standard jasmine from one of the places I usually go, it was the type that is in those bright metallic blue or green 150 gram cylindrical tins with the cranes on them. I don't usually buy jasmine so this was just something to fill in that gap, but it is pretty...I want to say chemically but I don't actually MEAN adulterated with chemicals, I mean the jasmine taste is very bright and sharp, not necessarily overwhelmingly strong. That was just the first time I've brewed it though, and I very well may have used too much tea or too hot water and also I am not used to flavored teas since I don't usually get them and it stands out to my palette and nose because of that. It's not unpleasant...just more than I'm used to I think. I didn't notice any blossoms among the tea yet. The tins are gorgeous. Have you tried any of that keemun (I think they spell it Qimen) tea in the reddish or reddish brown square tins that are similar to the standard yellow jasmine tins?

There's an assam in the Indian section pre-flavored with cardamom that I have been considering trying. I'm not yet ready to buy it though. Melinda

Mine is orders of magnitudes better. You get one pint of heavy cream, and you add about three tablespoons of the powder, then some sugar. Mix carefully, so all the powder is distributed and it's not lumpy. Taste it. Add more sugar until it's just a little bit sweeter than you want, because when it's frozen you won't be able to taste the sweetness as much. If you can't taste both the bitterness and the floweriness of the tea, add more tea powder. When it freezes, you'll taste more of the tea and less of the sugar. Use a whisk to break up all the lumps of tea.

Then, take the mix and put it into the ice cream freezer. Freeze and eat.

If you want the health benefit, buy some cheap Temple of Heaven gunpowder and use that. It'll be just as healthy, I suspect. Except for the pesticide residues...

--scott

There were some other Butterfly brands I didn't pick up. I think Qimen was one of them. I know this tea is graded so if anyone knows a good commercial brand in Chinatown please let us both know. Cardamom is a popular flavor in the Arabic brands which are Ceylon based.

Jim

Mel> > Melinda,

...I delete me and some of you...