Ochazuke with Broiled Tofu

I am using up my Sayamakaori shincha to make Ochazuke today. Ochazuke is a Japanese dish in which a hot tea is poured over rice topped with some simple ingredients. The dish is simple, tasty and extremely easy to prepare. Just put hot cooked rice in a bowl (I am using organic Japanese sushi rice), place any toppings of your choice (favorite toppings include grilled salmon, tempura or broiled eel),  add sesame seeds, wasabi, green onion or freshly grated ginger for additional flavor, then pour your tea (sencha, hojicha or bancha) over it. Done.

I didn't have any wasabi, green onion or fresh ginger today so I had mine without any extra flavor. Just rice, broiled tofu and tea. Simple and delicious.

2010 Sayamakaori Shincha from Yuuki-Cha

Another shincha that I am trying to finish up as well. I brewed 5 gram of leaves in 5 ounces of filtered water - boiled with bamboo charcoal- in 370ml kyusu by Hokujo (Shimizu Genji). The first brew was about 1 minute which resulted a sweet, light vegetal and clean taste. The second (and third brew - both for about 20 seconds) was bold, pleasantly crisp and nice astringent without bitterness at all. As with any other shincha, after the fourth brew, I continued brewing with boiling water  to enjoy its sweet water. 

This light steamed shincha is from Shizuoka and 100% sayamakaori breed. Very nice looking asamushi needles!

A big bowl of sayamakaori sweet tea water. 

Tea in Jakarta

I didn't get a chance to visit two tea houses as I originally planned, but I still managed to drink some good teas while I was in Jakarta last week as two tins of matcha and some oolongs from Floating Tea Leaves were traveling with me on this trip. 

At the hotel we're staying, my mother and I enjoyed our non-creamy and un-frothy matcha every morning at breakfast. I had all the tools with me; chawan, matcha shifter, chasaku and chasen. But after preparing matcha (Aiya organic ceremonial) with all those tools on the first day and didn't get a good result (but  got a lot of questions about the tools from the hotel waitstaff), I decided to just use regular teacup and spoon. Of course it didn't produce a fine and creamy drink, but the taste was good and we liked it. That's all the matters, right? 

Breakfast View from the hotel

At my parents house, my mother and I enjoyed our morning matcha in D. Michael Coffee's chawan prepared using more "appropriate" tools, and Alishan Oolong from Floating Tea Leaves in the afternoon. 

A day before I went back to the states, my sister, my mother and I decided to visit two tea plantations in Puncak.  Growing up, my parents often took us to different tea plantations near where we lived for a picnic lunch on the tea fields. During my college years, my friends and I often went to Malabar Tea Plantation in Pengalengan for the weekend just to breath the fresh air and walk around tea plants. I am always fascinated by the beauty of the tea fields. And I wanted to see it again this time. 

It was raining really hard when we reached the first plantation "Perkebunan Teh Ciliwung", so we just enjoyed the tea fields from the car. Fortunately the rain stopped when we got to "Perkebunan Teh Gunung Mas", a government-owned tea plantation about 87 km south of Jakarta. We went straight to the cafe inside the plantation to warm ourselves up with a pot of hot tea, fried banana and yummy grilled banana. We were the only customers at that time. Ah.. what a peaceful place... so calm, so quite, and so green.

Perkebunan Teh Ciliwung

"Agrowisat Ciliwung" seberang Cagar Alam Cibulao

Kecamatan Tugu, Cisarua

Perkebunan Teh Gunung Mas

Jl. Raya Puncak, Bogor

(0251) 25 2501