It's All About Tea — japanese tea

As much as we love our daily gong fu tea, the summer days are only getting hotter. We know sometimes as much as you’d like to enjoy a quiet moment with your tea pet, brewing up pot after pot of delicious loose leaf tea, the heat can make the practice unbearable. At times like this, we switch to our favorite summer-time tea brewing method — cold brewed tea! (Read more)

Once drinking Japanese green tea was reserved only for the Emperors, noblemen, and samurai. Nowadays, Japanese green tea is enjoyed in households all throughout Japan. The kyusu is used all through Japan for the convenience of brewing Japanese green teas like sencha, genmaicha, and gyokuro. It is an iconic part of modern Japanese tea drinking culture. (Read more)

Out of Japan's 47 prefectures, tea is produced almost everywhere except for Hokkaido, the most northern part of Japan, as well as Osaka and Yamagata prefectures. Shizuoka and Kagoshima are the two most significant regions of tea production throughout Japan. (Read more)

Mid May in Japan. Right about now is when tea farmers are busy packing and shipping out the very first green tea harvest of the year. Many wait an entire year to try this first flush tea — shincha. How could they not? The lack of any bitter notes, the undeniable umami, and all the nutrients that the tea bushes have been storing up all winter long. Shincha is well worth the wait! (Read more)

Tea (camellia sinensis) indeed originated in China. Green tea also originated in China. However, Chinese green tea and Japanese green tea vary quite a bit. From Chinese green tea coming in various elaborate shapes and colors to Japanese green tea, which tends to have a darker green color and small flat tea leaves after processing. With so many different tea varieties, green tea is still by far the most commonly consumed tea in both China and Japan. So what are the main differences between Japanese and Chinese green tea? (Read more)