Over Afternoon Tea

Tea is not only a drink but a ritual over which people have been relaxing, talking, and catching up on each other's lives for centuries. This blog is intended to serve as a virtual cup of tea, helping me keep in touch with friends and family in my physical absence.

Matcha, Matcha, Matcha!

I am not a gourmet. Most of the groceries I buy fall into the 'whatever brand was cheapest' category. I don't buy organic, and I make a lot of casseroles. Most of our dinners are cooked on the weekend and re-heated all week, and we often eat the same thing for at least one meal a day all week.
But you can find gourmet items in my house in two places: the chocolate box and the tea-cupboard. The crown jewel of my chocolate box is Valrhona Manjari. I'm extremely proud of myself for having found a place to purchase this rare chocolate. I won't go into the details, but let's just say it's probably about the highest-quality chocolate available on the market. Only two metric tons available per year.
Tea is a little more complicated. There's not just a scale of best to worst, there's also a plethora of varieties. And I like them all. But I have acquired a new little gem. It's a special tea which is grown in the usual manner and then shaded from the sun for two or three weeks before hand-picking, thereby allowing it to retain more tasty nutrients in the leaves. After picking, every little vein is removed (by hand) from the leaf, and then the leaf is steamed, dried, and powdered. E voila! matcha. This is the tea used in the insanely complicated tea ceremony in which everything, EVERYTHING, from the food served to the designs on the cups to the decorations on the wall, has a meaning, and specifications go as far as how many sips one is to drink the tea in--two and a half, if I remember correctly. For now I'm just sitting here and contemplating the fact that little Western me has such an amazing little preparation. But soon, when I find a special enough occasion, I'm going to use it for cooking. Why, you ask? Well, I went to this sushi bar, and they had green tea cake. I've been wanting more ever since. Mmm, yummy. Matcha cake, anyone?