Official what GREEN are you currently drinking?

[William]

Brewing for the first time some gyokuro I bought from yuuki-cha with Nosaka clay .. Wow!

After this I will immediately brew some Tsukigase zairai sencha or maybe some Asahina gyokuro.

So far I am really impressed!

[debunix]

Great idea, will try this with lefty!

[Mrs. Chip]

Our morning tea on the patio, Aoi ala O-Cha, absolutely delightful.

[debunix]

O-Cha's Gyoku-Hou, brewed up in the new Shimizu Ken Nosaka kyusu. Delicious. This pot has a wonderful impact on the tea. Drinking from Shawn McGuire's snowflake yunomi, a nice fit with this petite pot....



More pics of the pot in the 'ode to the kyusu' topic.

[Nebs]

Brewing some Chiran Asatsuyu Sencha again! It's so delicious and sadly, almost finished. Maybe I will try some Organic Chiran Sencha when I'm done with this tea.

[jayinhk]

Drinking fresh gyokuro I picked up in Okinawa earlier in the week. I seem to have brewed it right...I have a Japanese wooden spoon for measuring tea now, which helps greatly. I can't read the packaging, so I don't know where it is from, but this tea is mild and very nutty...like pistachios. Very interesting and very enjoyable drinking!

I'd had a fair bit of awamori to drink before the gyokuro...it sobered me up and filled me with calm and peace, while I examined my new cup. It actually looks a lot like debunix's cup above. I now know what a yunomi is. The gyokuro is good, good stuff.



Had some organic kamairi from o-cha, followed by Chiran meicha from an Aeon supermarket in Nago, Okinawa. O-cha's Kamairi is quite a bit better than the Meicha, which is good, but not outstanding by any means. I sure have a lot of green tea to drink this spring and summer!

Here's the yunomi in use with some awamori.

[jayinhk]

Okinawan sanpincha (jasmine tea). Best jasmine I've ever brewed, but not as good as the tea I was served at a very fancy Okinawan restaurant there. That stuff really blew me away! It looked to have been black jasmine.

[debunix]

O-Cha Tsuen Aoi sencha, in the small Nosaka Shimizu Ken kyusu: a wonderful session, appropriate in volume for a morning when I've already had a fair bit of other beverage and just need a little bit of a tea fix.

[jayinhk]

Organic Kirishima Asatsuyu from O-Cha. Love this stuff. Umami, but sweet and pleasant with a hint of cantaloupe. I'm definitely on a sencha kick now...I drink 30g a day!

[debunix]

Today, Tsuen Aoi sencha in my Petr Novak shino kyusu, for a morning when I have a bit more time and want a bit more volume from my tea session. It's just as good, mmmm, as the tea from the Shimizu Ken Nosaka pot.

[Zj87]

Hey everyone, I'm new to the forum and I'm sorry if this is the wrong thread, but a I have question on matcha. I work in a cafe and want to get them to start serving matcha. I need to purchase some samples (a variety) before they can decide what to stock here.

I've checked out Ippodo online and was a little overwhelmed. We want to serve the best possible tea. Could anyone tell me maybe 5-10 matchas that I should purchase for sample tasting? Thanks!

[bonescwa]

Lol good luck on that profit margin feasibility

[Drax]

Check out o-cha.com and their selection of matcha. They offer about 10 types. You'll see the prices run a large range ($10 to $40 for 30 grams of tea). I recommend purchasing more at the lower end, and then perhaps try one or two max at the higher end. What I think you'll find is that the teas at the "low end" (such as the kiri no mori) are actually quite good. And you *might* find that the 4x increase in price at the high end does not equate to a 4x increase in quality or enjoyment. But those impressions I leave to the taster.

If you're considering serving them at a tea shop, I would also recommend staying with the "usucha" types (as those make a larger volume of beverage).

Given the markup on a cup of coffee and how much people are willing to pay for it (or a recent article I read where the author stated she was slurping down a $9 kale shake), I don't think you'll have any problems with profit margins... particularly since matcha appears to be skirting the fringes of the next buzz drink.

A new thread/posting might be the best place for this topic, though. Chip might be able to move the posts...

[bonescwa]

I guess I'm still in denial over the amount of people money will spend for things.

[Zj87]

Yeah Drac, I'm actually right up the street from you in DC and yes, people will pay crazy money for things. I think matcha would be a good menu addition. Thank you so much for the great advice! I'll look into those teas and see what we can get/people prefer. This is an exciting endeavor...having a shop buy a variety of teas for me!