Thank you to all of our customers for your support, without which there would be no tea for us to enter in the championship. This is an award for all of us.
"Scene of Cherry Blossoms and a Small Bird" (Ohka Shokin-zu 桜花小禽図) by Oda Kaizen (小田海僊, 1785–1862) shows a woodpecker perched in a blossoming cherry tree.
Like a haiku or the tea ceremony, this work focuses on a specific moment in time — that point in the beginning of the cherry blossom cycle when some of the flowers are finally in full bloom, others still barely opening buds, leaves still outnumbering blossoms.
In this state, the leaves provide dark color against which the white cherry blossoms contrast. This suggests another of the work's themes: balance. Balance can also be seen between blossom-carrying branches and the branch-bearing trunk, between occupied space and empty space, between the woodpecker's own dark and light colors, and between an immobile tree and a bird that has alighted there only briefly.
Tea ceremony strives for balance between giving and receiving tea, between guest and host. (In Oda's sumie painting, the tree is also playing host to the bird.) Through the tea, guest and host mindfully savor each moment. Likewise, a cup of tea by oneself is a mini-tea ceremony, an opportunity to savor the moment — before it flutters away.
New — yuzu green tea
Mellow Monk® presents a new addition to our lineup: Yuzu Dream™, a blend of artisinal green tea and sun-dried yuzu peel.
The sublime flavor and fragrance of yuzu are well known in the culinary world and also blend spectacularly well with green tea in the form of yuzu ryokucha ("yuzu green tea").
One of our grower–artisans in Kumamoto, Japan, pairs sun-dried yuzu peel with his award-winning green tea. The yuzu is specially prepared to capture all of its tasty essence and blended in just the right proportion with the tea by the grower–artisan himself. The result is an exquisite experience that must be brewed to be believed.
Mesh strainers like this are sometimes hard to find online. Or, if you find them, only really small-diameter ones are offered. Or maybe the actual size isn't even listed.
Teavana offers stainless steel mesh strainers in a wide range of sizes. The largest size is 77 mm (3.1 in.), which would give you tea leaves plenty of room to bloom. These items are apparently meant as replacement tea strainer baskets for teapots Teavana sells, but there is no reason you cannot drop one into your favorite teacup or mug. And the same kind of mesh baskets sold as stand-alone tea infusers are usually much more expensive.
I like actual mesh better than perforated steel, as the wet leaves plop out easily, whereas they can stick tenaciously to the perforated kind.
One caveat, however, is that there isn't a lot of leeway in width, as the rim isn't very wide. So you should measure the size of the mug/cup with which you plan to use the strainer so it doesn't fall entirely into your cup or get crushed when inserted into a too-small cup.
As the name suggests, this kettle/teapot does nearly the work for you: simply put in the water and the tea, tell the teamaker which kind of tea you have (green, oolong, black?), and press the button. The Breville heats the water to the right temperature and dunks in the tea leaves for the appropriate amount of time, then raises the leaf basket out of the water, which is key to preventing oversteeping.
This would make a wonderful holiday gift for a tea-lover on your list — but you'd better start saving up now.
Says Kate: "The liquor is deep ruby with a gentle aroma of fresh cut wood, nutmeg, orchids, and citrus. It's vaguely reminiscent of a high-grown Ceylon."
Aso City: Mr. Nagata's Steamed Green Tea Even Americans Say, "Wonderful"
In America's largest tea contest, the North American Tea Championship, first place in the "steamed green tea division" was awarded to tea producer Koji Nagata (age 42), of Miyaji, Ichinomiya-cho, Aso City.
In the contest, held in late July in Las Vegas, U.S.A., over 200 teas were submitted in 15 divisions, which included matcha, white tea, pan-fried green tea, and blended tea. Mr. Nagata's "steamed tamaryokucha [curly green tea]" was chosen as the best through a judging in which each tea was scored according to leaf color and shape and the tea's aroma, taste, mouthfeel, and overall balance.
Mr. Nagata has been making tea for 23 years. He cultivates 1.7 hectares of tea plants and has emphasized making fertilizer from manure and reducing agrichemical use.
Eight years ago in Aso, he met Paul Kotta (age 45), who works at an American defense research organization and whose wife is also from Ichinomiya-cho. Liking Mr. Nagata's green tea, he entered it in the contest. [Editor's note: The reporter omits reference to Mellow Monk as his newspaper's rules forbid mentioning companies by name in such stories.]
Part of a trend toward health consciousness, green tea is undergoing a quiet boom in the United States. Mr. Kotta says, "Tea grown in Aso, with its large [temperature] difference between summer and winter, has a good balance of sweetness, bitterness, and savoriness." Says Mr. Nagata: "I was surprised when I learned about the first place win, but I'm glad to see Aso tea recognized overseas."
Shincha when?
I received an inquiry today asking if we had shincha yet, so I thought I'd share my reply with all of you.
Thank you for your inquiry and for your interest in our tea.
Harvest time for our grower-artisans in Kumamoto Prefecture doesn't start until late May or so. (It depends on the weather patterns -- they judge when it's time for harvest by how the leaves develop, so we never know until the day itself).
The grower-artisans are so busy during harvest time that they barely have time to eat, so they don't start shipping shincha right away.
Long story short, we won't start shipping shincha for a while yet, but the tea we have in stock now is kept in bulk in the growers' special cooling rooms and shipped here in small batches, so it's quite fresh, in case you want to give it a try now.
Please let me know if you have any other questions. Thank you again for getting in touch.
My favorite coffee shop in Aso has a similar setup. The owner cold-brews the coffee overnight (since brewing is drip-by-drip slow) then heats it by the cup when you order it. This may seem inefficient, but the coffee is excellent. Some things are worth waiting for — even by the drop.
Enter the tea dragon
"Fugaku Toryu Zu" ([富嶽登龍図] Drawing of Dragon Climbing Mt. Fuji) is a calligraphic brush painting by Kano Eigaku. It was commissioned in 1852 by Ii Naosuke, a late-Shogunate-era official who was also an avid practitioner of sado.
This work was featured in a collection I came across called Zencha no Kokoro ("Spirit of Zen and Tea"). Other than its first owner, what is the painting's connection with tea? This work clearly reflects the turbulent times in which it was painted. But is the mighty dragon being engulfed by the storm around him, even as his eyes are fixed determinedly on the mountain's peak? Or is he emerging from the storm's grasp? Perhaps that is the point: the ending of the dragon's quest has not yet been written.
Volunteers rated the toffee eaten during low-pitched music as more bitter than that consumed during the high-pitched rendition. The toffee was, of course, identical. It was the sound that tasted different.
Here are a couple of mixes for you to experiment with. Green tea has such a broad range of flavors, and the low, mellow notes in the music complement deliciously the smooth, earthy flavor of tea, while the high, cheery notes perfectly match the tea's sweet, cheery flavor components.
And of course when the mellow vibe of the two come together, the result is copacetic.
But I still think it's the tea that makes the music sound better, not the other way around.
Machine Project
Mellow Monk doesn't only promote independent agriculture; we like to promote indie everything.
Machine Project is a loose group of creative people who hold and host performances and educational activities about things they find interesting — music, poetry, sewing, computer programming, and cheese tastings, to name only a few.
This video about Machine Project starts out with a fascinating and haunting musical piece combining a harp and trumpet. How cool is that?
Artisan's Reserve is an artisinal blend of select kabusecha (shade-grown tea) and sun-grown tamaryokucha-style sencha. This combination produces an exquisite ensemble of tastes: a subtle herbaceous sweetness with citrus and melon highlights, all over a kabusecha-like creamy texture.
Please join us in welcoming Artisan's Blend to the Mellow Monk family. The Kumamoto-based artisan who makes it puts all his tea-crafting heart into this tea, and it really shows.
How green tea staves off hepatitis
In the journal Hepatology, researchers describe how green tea protects the liver from hepatitis C: the flavinoid EGCG — which is found only in green tea — prevents the hepatitis C virus (HCV) from attaching to liver cells, "thus disrupting the initial step of HCV cell entry."
This is just one recent example of studies demonstrating the antiviral effects of EGCG, which in turn is merely one aspect of the health benefits of green tea.
And which shows how much natural goodness there is jam-packed into this humble little leaf:
Rock garden carved into a book
Part of Guy Laramee's "The Great Wall" project is this fascinating, somehow compelling piece: a rock garden carved out of — or is it "carved into"? — a book:
There's something very Zen about finding such a small rock garden in such an unexpected place.
Here's an excellent last-minute gift idea: the Hybrid Mug from Revenge Is. As you can see in the photo, it contains all the accoutrements you need for brewing loose-leaf on the go.
It even comes with its own travel case. It's also BPA free, naturally, for peace of mind and convenient tea-brewing on the go.
I also like that the Hybrid Mug holds a full 14 ounces, so that a single steeping will yield plenty of tea for a nice, leisurely tea break.
. (Although the coffee needs to be ground coarsely.)
.
.
