Where to start?

[Salsero]

it is seriously yummy ... I know there are some other chanoyu practitioners on here...

Duh, I should have remembered you practice the tea ceremony! Tea ceremony therefore matcha! Double duh! I just think of it as a beverage.

Just today I was talking to a non-tea person who has also always heard that the tea in the tea ceremony is bitter and unpalatable. That's where I got my first info about matcha too, so I thought people in this forum who where drinking matcha were also walking on hot coals for the entertainment value.

It wasn't until a couple months ago that I was sufficiently goaded by a thread (which shall remain nameless) into trying some. I was amazed that it was really quite good, and that was the cheapest of the three I have tried, all of which have been inexpensive. I can't say that it is my favorite tea (that would have to be a mythical tea that has touched the tea that has touched a goddess's lips - and no one carries that brand locally, though I keep looking), but matcha will always have a place in my tea life. Yummy is the word, and you are still a rockin' teababe, chamekke!

[chamekke]

I'm glad that you like matcha, salsero

For the people who were wondering about koicha, here's a photograph of koicha a.k.a. "thick tea" (bowl in left foreground) and usucha or "thin tea" (right background).



You can see that while the usucha is a very bright apple-green, the koicha is a super-saturated, utterly gorgeous emerald colour.

I really love drinking koicha out of a black raku teabowl, by the way. The black interior shows off the tea's colour perfectly; and afterwards, when you examine the bowl to enjoy the "landscape" (traces of remaining tea) within, it's like looking at a silky bed of brilliant rainforest moss.

Here, the usucha is also whipped into a froth. (That's the style of the Urasenke school; the Omotesenke folks prefer their tea much less frothy.) The koicha, on the other hand, is obviously very thick... impossible to work up a froth on this stuff!

Just looking at this photo makes me... well, not thirsty exactly... but very eager to have another bowl of koicha before long

chamekke,
the little matcha girl

[Salsero]

Wow, what a spectacular post, chamekke. I am also very partial to matcha in black bowls and those bowls are really beautiful. Where did you get them? And your description and information are wonderful. Thank you for sharing this with us. Did you see that post where olivierco (?) showed the remains of koicha in the matcha bowl? Those photos were also great, but your words are awesome. You are my matcha queen. All hail!

[chamekke]

Wow, what a spectacular post, chamekke. I am also very partial to matcha in black bowls and those bowls are really beautiful. Where did you get them? And your description and information are wonderful. Thank you for sharing this with us. Did you see that post where olivierco (?) showed the remains of koicha in the matcha bowl? Those photos were also great, but your words are awesome. You are my matcha queen. All hail!

Those bowls aren't mine - this is a photo that I discovered on the Web, and saved for future use since it illustrates the two tea "types" so well.

But as it happens, I do have a black raku bowl which is just as glossy and dark as these. Mine is a second-hand one, purchased on eBay from the seller sakura-zipang, back when he called himself samurai-zipang.*

Thank you for mentioning olivierco's post ... no, I haven't seen it, but now I'll have to look it up!

chamster

*Most of my chawan are from eBay, which offers great variety and occasionally some amazing finds. Plus, knowing that my chawan has already been enjoyed by other members of the fellowship of tea actually adds to its appeal for me. (I sometimes dream about who might have used it, why they chose it, and so forth...)

[chamekke]

Does anyone else do koicha around here? I have not yet tried it yet. I may load up the bowl with my regular (cheap) stuff and see if it works.

Normally, for koicha, you buy matcha that is expressly intended for koicha. As you might expect, it's more expensive You need to use a lot of it, and the tea leaves from which it's made are sweeter (and higher quality in general - allegedly hand-picked, too, but I'm not sure about that bit). When it's made properly, it is seriously yummy. I think so, anyway!

I just found the following posting from Space Samurai, who says it all much better:

Matcha isn't simply powdered sencha. Matcha starts with leaves that are shade grown between harvest (this is either similar to or exactly the same as gyokuro at this point--I'm not sure which). After this it becomes tencha, then it is deveined, destemmed, and ground into matcha using a stone mill.

Then of course there is the issue of quality. Good quality matcha uses very good quality tea leaves, sometimes from tea bushes that are decades old. With good quailty matcha, particular that which is used for koicha, you going to have a tea that has zero astringency and lots of natural sweetness and intense flavor.