Here’s another tea that I got from the Dayre Tea Exchange! I may have to go slow on the new teas after this because it seems like my gastric is back. Oh well, I had a good few weeks run of daily teas.

This green tea is from Tafu and for some reason, I can’t find the exact product page. I was also planning to talk about the history of the tea, since I talked about the different types the last time I tried something like this, but googling in Japanese didn’t give me any useful information. I did, however, find this interesting fact from the 日本茶のすべてがわかる本: 粉茶 (which is supposed to be a bit different from this 粉末茶) is a by-product of the tea making process. Another by-product is kukicha/boucha (茎茶・棒茶) and collectively, these products are called 出物 (demono). If you think about it, this is actually a pretty brilliant way to make sure nothing gets left behind – I just wish I could find out who discovered this and when.

Also, I think it’s pretty interesting that now, people have started touting the health benefits of both 茎茶 (kukicha) and 粉茶 (konacha), what with the low caffeine (kukicha) and being able to drink the whole leave (funmatsu and/or konacha). It’s another thing I’d like to know: did they find popularity and then get branded as healthy or was it the other way round?

Tea Review

The tea powder is a pretty bright green. It comes with a small spoon and I used that to make one cup of tea:

The tea liquor was a very murky dark green and had very prominent, grassy notes. It wasn’t extremely bitter, but I could definitely taste the bitterness. Strangely, I also found it a little sweet and earthy too. I made this according to the recommended concentrations, but found it too strong – I had to dilute it a bit more to get it just right. I did notice that the bitterness goes away when you dilute it, but the earthy taste (which is more of an aftertaste) is still there.

I also tried adding this to milk. It doesn’t work at all when you add it to cold milk, unlike the taberu ryokucha, but it does work with warm milk, or with milk added to the tea. The milk actually works well with this tea and you get the grassy and sweet notes without any of the bitterness or earthiness. For the first time, I actually prefer this with milk rather than water.

Brewing Recommendations

Mix 1 spoon (about 0.5g) with 100 ml of water (personally, I would use more).

The can also says you can mix it with nihonshu, whisky, etc., although I definitely haven’t tried that.

Personally, I would mix this with milk to make a green tea milk tea. I’ve also used this to make green tea mochi muffins and Dalgona green tea!