Tuesday January 26, 2010 | 6 comments
My first job, after college, was teaching English in Tokyo, Japan. That year, I had several “first-time” experiences: first time living alone, first time having a full-time job, first time living in a foreign country, and first time drinking first flush Darjeeling tea.
My first month, I met a new friend at a nice hotel tea room in the fashionable Shinjuku district of Tokyo. This tea room – furnished with western-style coffee tables and chairs – served no food – only tea. Patrons held intimate conversations at their tables, while sipping tea.
I grew up drinking tea – Earl Grey, English Breakfast, and Chai – but none of these appeared on the menu. The tea room offered a variety of teas from Japan, China, and India. Randomly, I chose a first flush Darjeeling.
The waitress brought porcelain teapots and matching cups, sugar, milk, lemon, and a timer to our table. She arranged the teapots, cups, and utensils in a precise pattern. At first, the formality intimidated me, but I quickly understood there was a “way” to drink tea. It was the first time I ever timed my tea steeping. I poured the perfectly steeped tea in my warm tea cup and inhaled the delicate floral aroma of Darjeeling. I took the first sip. It was amazing!
Another Japanese tea establishment I loved was the tea and cake shop. Found in Tokyo’s shopping districts, these shops served a pot of tea and a slice of cake. It was a great place to eat a snack with a friend while shopping or a nice dessert at the end of a long day walking around. It reminded me of the British low tea tradition. The Japanese love British black tea with milk, or “milk tea”. Convenience stores and vending machines sold milk tea cold in bottles and cans and sometimes in hot cans.
I enjoyed tasting a variety of teas from India and China from tea shops, convenience stores, and vending machines. My favorite was a sweet milk tea served hot in a can during the winter.
While in Japan, I learned about Japanese, British, and French tea traditions. Each tradition honors the tea by properly selecting, steeping, and infusing the tea leaves. Drinking tea reminded me of my home and family. It was great to have that comfort everywhere.
MAIN | IMAGE 1 | IMAGE 2
I’m surprised that so many different tea selections were available at a typical tea shop in Japan. I had assumed one would only find Japanese teas. When traveling in China, in small villages, I only had options for Chinese teas but obviously big cities in Japan are more cosmopolitan. I’m eager to visit Tokyo as I thoroughly enjoy Japanese teas and their unique traditional tea ceremonies.
japan happens to buy the best teas from india and they pay the highest.. as per statistics – japan pays an average 30 USD for darjeeling whole leaf teas. thats the highest average in the world…
Michelle: I was surprised at the variety of choices in the Tokyo tea shops. When I was in the countryside, I only drank Japanese tea. I would always have a bowl of matcha tea before I started touring temple cities. I would walk around for about 5 hours, so I needed the boost.
Ankit: I only saw first and second flush darjeeling teas in Japan.
To be sure most of the production of tea in Japan is of the green style (and there are many different grades and varieties even from the same plantation depending upon harvest and growing techniques) but to many people’s surprise, Japan does also produce some amount of black tea. It isn’t often seen, and from my understanding it isn’t even very often seen in Japanese tea shops (I’m looking forward to possibly one day traveling to the area of my favorite Japanese Green teas from the area near Kyoto) but it is available. There is one online store where I’ve purchased these products and while I still think that Darjeeling is still my favorite black (Kudos Ankit and all the good folks at Lochan Tea) there is some merit to trying something that has its own unique taste. The Yuuki-cha website http://www.yuuki-cha.com/Organic+Black+Tea offers these varieties and I’ve tried them all. I must say they are quite an enjoyable experience that I hadn’t really expected out of Japan. This same store also sells a Japanese produced Oolong (again more notable for Taiwan and China but a nice smooth tasting tea) and for the most part it seems to me that the Japanese tea companies don’t usually blend their teas but sell them from single origin plantations. It’s worth giving it a try if you haven’t experienced them.
As always, many blessings upon you all.
Fr. Patrick
I wanna say that this site I considered to be one of my favorite website I’ve ever read cause it was well organized and same as my Tea Black site also.
i also like Darjeeling tea, its my favorite tea