Journal
Is matcha popular in Japan?
Visitors arrive expecting to find it everywhere, and spend a week not finding it. The vending machines are full of green tea, but it is not this green tea.
Is matcha popular in Japan?
Visitors arrive expecting to find it everywhere, and spend a week not finding it. The vending machines are full of green tea, but it is not this green tea.
Is matcha Japanese or Chinese?
Matcha is Japanese the way pasta is Italian. The thing was made somewhere else first, and then one country spent six hundred years turning it into something its inventor would...
Is matcha Japanese or Chinese?
Matcha is Japanese the way pasta is Italian. The thing was made somewhere else first, and then one country spent six hundred years turning it into something its inventor would...
Is the Japanese tea ceremony religious?
You take your shoes off, bow, and sit quietly under a scroll you cannot read. It is a fair question to ask what exactly you have walked into, and the...
Is the Japanese tea ceremony religious?
You take your shoes off, bow, and sit quietly under a scroll you cannot read. It is a fair question to ask what exactly you have walked into, and the...
Does matcha stain?
Matcha is not a dye. It is finely milled leaf lodged in fabric or in the scratches of a glaze, which is why cold water and speed matter more than...
Does matcha stain?
Matcha is not a dye. It is finely milled leaf lodged in fabric or in the scratches of a glaze, which is why cold water and speed matter more than...
Is matcha supposed to taste sweet?
The sweetness in good matcha arrives late, after the bitterness has cleared. It is made in the field by shading, which is why you cannot whisk it in.
Is matcha supposed to taste sweet?
The sweetness in good matcha arrives late, after the bitterness has cleared. It is made in the field by shading, which is why you cannot whisk it in.
What do you say at a tea ceremony?
You can sit through a tea gathering without saying a word of Japanese. If you would like to say something, four phrases are enough.
What do you say at a tea ceremony?
You can sit through a tea gathering without saying a word of Japanese. If you would like to say something, four phrases are enough.
Tomari (とまり) is an old word for a mooring — the place a boat ties up for the night. A bowl of tea is meant to be the same: a few minutes to put the day down. You do not need to know the rules to begin.
Who chose this
I choose everything here by hand, in Japan. I practice tea rather than simply selling the tools for it — I am not a tea master and I do not claim to be. I am a practitioner, which mostly means I have ruined enough bad whisks to know what a good one feels like in the first second of holding it.
Nothing is drop-shipped and nothing passes through a third warehouse. I pack each order in Tokyo and post it from Japan, ceramics double-boxed by hand. If something arrives broken, write within 7 days with photographs of the piece and the box, and I send a replacement or a refund; there is nothing to post back unless I ask. Who writes and chooses all this, and the longer version of why this shop exists.