Tea Tasting in Tokyo

I highly recommend doing a tea tasting or a tea ceremony in Japan. Billy and I aren’t major tea drinkers so we opted for a more casual tasting over a ceremony. We left the experience with an appreciation for tea and discovered some new flavours in our palate.

This post I’m going to share a few photos I took during the tasting and my flavour notes that I took in my tiny travel notebook – in the moment!

As you can see from the photos, the atmosphere of Sakurai was beautiful and what I imagine as ‘zen-like’. The decor was modern with a touch of rustic and natural elements. The dishes the tea was served in were gorgeous.

The tasting started with Gyokuro tea, a young blend that was grown in cloudy, humid conditions over 2-3 weeks. Our tea master poured accurately heated water over the leaves and told us to wait until this timer was finished before lifting the lid.

Once it was ready, we tasted. I thought it was bitter with a spinach flavour. There were grassy notes and reminded me of cows in a meadow.

The second tea was Sencha and it was served cold. The flavour was vegetable, bitter, and fairly refreshing. The presentation, as you can see, was elegant. For the pairing, we actually ate the Sencha tea leaves from our drink that were drizzled with ponzu sauce. The ponzu is in the golden flask that sort of looks like a pear.

Our third tea was a roasted green tea that was also fermented. The toasted tea leaves gave a sweet aroma but the taste was primarily bitter and citrus. This tea was paired with smoked radish and vinegar. I liked that they only gave a little tasting for the pairings. The flavours were so intense that not much was needed to get the full flavour contrast.

By this time, Billy and I were starting to feel a bit funny – it was a little like being high. But we still had a glass of matcha left to enjoy. Matcha is a tea I expected to love: bright green and frothy. I found it to be quite subtle despite its vibrant colour and very filling. Sadly, I don’t have a photo of this cuz I was buzzin’ on tea.

The pairing treat was a matcha ball with a raisin in the middle AND a date topped with a walnut and fermented butter. The date was ridiculously good.