To old subscribers: hello and welcome back! It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything here but it’s not like I haven’t been drinking a lot of tea. I decided to reinvigorate this blog a bit. To begin I’d like to talk about a wonderful experience I had in Japan this summer.
This year I visited Japan’s large northern island, Hokkaidō (北海道). Mostly I enjoyed the beautiful coastlines and incredible views, but being a tea person, of course I also was always on the lookout for tea!
To my knowledge, Hokkaido is the only major island of Japan that does not grow any tea. The tea plant likes semi-tropical regions, and Hokkaido is pretty far to the north. It is known for its many ski resorts, but not so much for tea fields.
However, in the major city of Sapporo (札幌市), I discovered a small tea shop called Gyokusuien (玉翠園) that is really worth visiting. The shop has been in one family since 1933 and imports tea from all over Japan to sell. Moreover, they also blend and age tea! You can read about the aging technique on their site (translation may be required).
This is a sencha made from the finest sencha selected from all over Japan, aged in the Hoheikyo Dam Tunnel in Jozankei, Minami Ward, Sapporo. The aging process softens the harshness and gives the tea a mellow, rich flavor.
– Description of Water Guardian Blend (Google Translated)
Aging tea is an ancient technique of letting tea sit in a quiet, stable place such as a storehouse to give it a mellow, rich flavor… Our company was founded by my grandfather who learned aging and tea techniques in Kyoto… The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism contacted me to carry out a demonstration experiment on aging Japanese tea in a rim tunnel excavated into the thick bedrock of Hoheikyo Gorge in Minami Ward, Sapporo.
Gyokusuien aged tea page (Google Translated)
The owner was very kind to allow us to taste some of the tea offered by his shop. There’s no real cafe seating inside the small market space but two stools squashed between the wall and a steaming chagama provide a spot to sit and experience the owner’s wares. Seating for tea in this way seems to be a recurring theme in Japanese tea shops and reminds me of a miniature version of the tea tasting tables of China and Taiwan.
Of course, we also have regular hot green tea available from a variety of regions and varieties, so please feel free to use it. We will also teach you how to brew delicious tea in a teapot, so please feel free to ask.
– Gyokusuien cafe page (Google Translated)
At this small table I learned how to be very gentle with my first infusion of sencha, taking pains to avoid shaking the leaves in the pot during the steep and especially during the pour. This allows the first infusion to contain mostly the lighter liquor off the top of the pot and saves the rich umami-packed magic for the second infusion. In this way it’s possible to produce three or more fully flavorful infusions of one pot of sencha.
Normally by the third (or even second) infusion, I find my Japanese tea loses much of its sweetness as the tannins take over but this skillful technique allows those flavors to be spread out across multiple steeps. I still need practice at doing this myself, but just knowing it is possible has changed a lot for me.
I made a pot of their aged tea (Hoheikyo Water Guardian Blend or 豊平峡水の守人) just today. It’s an amazing, nutty, sweet, perfectly balanced sencha.
If you ever find yourself in Sapporo, definitely stop by this shop and have a cup of tea. I can’t wait to do it again some day, perhaps in the winter; a hot cup of sencha looking out at a snowy street seems like the most perfect thing I can imagine.
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