JOURNAL

€0,00 Cart Shincha or the beautifulness of Japanese teas Read it in Spanish! Many of you might not have heard this word before. Or you might have heard it and might have found it confusing. Completely normal if you ask me since shincha and sencha sound very similar. However they are different things. The biggest difference between shincha (not to be mistaken with Shinchan) and sencha is the fact that shincha is finished to be shipped straight away, whereas sencha can remain in its aracha (荒茶) form until is sold at the auction or to the tea dealers and often times are finished by the dealer or the retailers themselves… Read More »Shincha or the beautifulness of Japanese new teas

€0,00 Cart Teabag or no teabag, that is the question! Read it in Spanish! I have been wanting to grow my own tea plants since the first time I visited a Japanese tea farm back in 2017. However, I did not get any tea seeds until just recently, when a friend of mine traveled to Wazuka and sent me some once she was back in Europe. While I am not new to growing plants out of seeds, I used to have 150 tomato plants in my balcony during the time I lived in Glasgow, I have never grown a tea plant from a seed before. Neither I have grown anything… Read More »How to grow Camellia Sinensis tea plants out of seeds at home

€0,00 Cart Hachiju hachija or the eighty eight days (or nights) tea Read it in Spanish! Have you ever heard about this term before? Japan uses two calendars, the official one (Gregorian) which is the calendar most widely used around the world and the unofficial one. Hachijuu Hachiya (八十八夜) is one of the most important dates for Japanese farmers. It means eighty eight days (it depends where we look at it is also translated into eighty eight nights) after the start of the spring (risshun 立春) following the traditional Japanese calendar and it falls around the 2nd of May (except during leap years then it falls in the 1st of… Read More »Hachiju hachiya: the eighty eight days (or nights) tea

€0,00 Cart Bamboo Whisk: the ultimate matcha brewing tool! Read it in Spanish! Often times I have gotten the same question. I got a matcha whisk but how do I use it? Understandable if you ask me since the chasen or bamboo whisk: is the ultimate tool created specifically for matcha brewing. Its function is to whisk the matcha powder and to emulsify it with the water during the brewing process. This delicate piece of matcha brewing equipment it is not difficult to be cared for yet for those who have never used it might feel like an alien element in their tea cabinets or counters.  I would like to… Read More »Bamboo whisk: the ultimate matcha brewing tool!

€0,00 Cart Tricks you can use to enjoy your Japanese teas on the go Read it in Spanish! We all love our Japanese teas and we wish that there were easier ways of enjoying them even when we are not at home. I personally got a specific teapot for travelling so I can brew on the go. I love it, my customers love it, we all love it. It’s tiny, it’s light, it’s not that expensive so if it gets lost or if it breaks, it can be easily replaced. I still remember back in the day when I worked as a QA & Project Manager at an office in… Read More »Tricks you can use to enjoy your Japanese teas on the go

€0,00 Cart Excuse me, there is green tea in my milk! Read it in Spanish! I have been drinking tea since I was twelve years old. It all started with some CTC in teabags, its flavour was very strong even if I did not brew it for long. So adding milk to black tea has been a part of my life for many years. In fact, each time I went out with my parents I would order a tea with milk and cinnamon. This was a rather popular way of serving tea in my area back in the day. The other options available were plain tea or with a slice… Read More »Excuse me, there is green tea in my milk!

€0,00 Cart Usucha versus koicha: which one to choose when brewing matcha? Read it in Spanish! If you are an avid matcha drinker like I am, you surely know the terms usucha and koicha. You might have heard the terms before, might have tried both types of brew and might have even taken part in a proper and formal Japanese Tea Ceremony where one of the types of brew or even both were served. But do you know what they mean? Usucha (薄茶)means thin tea and can be used to brew the majority of ceremonial matcha teas available in the market. Whereas koicha (濃茶 thick tea) is usually brewed using… Read More »Usucha versus koicha: which one to choose when brewing matcha?

€0,00 Cart Are the organic teas better than non-organic ones? Read it in Spanish! Organic products have become really popular during the recent years. I remember eating natural food made from scratch most of my childhood and teenage years, at the time, everything seemed to be natural and therefore was also organic. However, both terms do not mean the same. A natural product is usually found in nature, minimally processed, grown naturally, does not contain artificial flavours, hormones or antibiotics. However, they can still be grown using chemical fertilizers. They come from the nature yet there is not such a heavy regulation in place as with organic products.  An organic… Read More »Are organic teas better than non-organic ones?

€0,00 Cart True Teas, how what you are drinking might not be tea, actually Read it in Spanish! I belong to a number of tea related groups in social media and sometimes I cannot help but noticing that some people use the word tea to refer to some beverages that are actually not tea. Many seem to ignore that true teas come from the Camellia Sinensis plant only, whereas everything else doesn’t. This is somewhat a controversial topic since it is widely extended and deeply ingrained in people’s mind. Changing the way it currently is doesn’t look like an easy task. Yet I do not stop trying, if I see… Read More »True teas, how what you are drinking might not be tea actually.

€0,00 Cart How to brew matcha the easy foolproof way! Read it in Spanish! Matcha, also known as powdered green tea, is one of the most famous Japanese teas out there. Even though it has been used in Japan during centuries due to its health properties, it did not become popular in the Western countries until about 15 years ago.  If you haven’t heard about matcha before, there is a lot of information here. WHY IS MATCHA SO POPULAR? irstly, it has an amazing bright green colour that makes it to stand out. It is very eye catchy and it looks gorgeous on Instagram. There are millions of photographs featuring… Read More »How to brew matcha the easy foolproof way!

€0,00 Cart Japanese Tea Brewing 101 Read it in Spanish! If you have never brewed any loose tea leaves, letting alone any Japanese loose tea, you might get quite shocked upon tasting your brew & realizing that is rather bitter. You might even spit it out in disbelief, then go back to teabags or other loose leaf teas.  BUT WHY IS SO? Usually, Japanese teas are regarded as the most difficult to brew out there since they require a high control on the amount of water and leaves ratio plus the water temperature. Let’s take gyokuro as an example. Gyokuro is a pleasant and delicate Japanese shaded tea with a… Read More »Japanese Tea Brewing 101

€0,00 Cart Teabag or no teabag, that is the question! Read it in Spanish! The use of teabags is a controversial topic for some tea drinkers, that might lead to heated debates between teabag lovers & those who like me, are whole leaf loose tea advocates. Not only because the teabags are seen as a source of waste generation, but also because the tea leaves cannot be brewed properly encased inside the little pouches.  In addition, generally speaking, the tea commercialized in teabags is not usually of the highest quality. Teabags are for the most part rather cheap, in order to be profitable, the tea contained in the teabags cannot… Read More »Teabag or no teabag, that is the question!