Contemplations of a Closet Curmudgeon

This is special, all right. Flavor is deep, with a fruity, sweet plummy thing melding with those floral aromas, and a darker, slightly spicy thing going on in the background.

The Yixing zisha clay teapot is brand new. It's been properly rinsed and seasoned, but it's NEW. My rational brain is yelling at me that it has not had time on a single steep to do anything. Emperor's new teapot and all that. But - is that black licorice???? The difference is so subtle I'm having a hard time being objective. Is the clay brewed tea flavor just the teensiest bit warmer? Or is my brain just wanting it to be?

I don't know. What I do know is that this is a delicious tea and I will dump the gaiwan leaf into the teapot and happily enjoy more steeps.

From the seller, info about this tea. https://verdanttea.com/spring-laoshan-gongfu-black-special-grade 

Second steep, all in the teapot, drinking from a thicker walled chawan now. Still delicious, warming. This tea is a winner and I need to make sure I note that on my spreadsheet. 

In other news, that high edged plate from Reannag Teine works quite nicely as a tea boat. The plate was a token from the late Countess Berengaria for representing her in the 2018 Valkyrie Rose Tournament at Great Western War. Miss you, Bera.  These clay teapots benefit from getting wet with tea, so you're supposed to overfill the pot a little bit, which means you need something that catches the water, like a "tea boat" or slotted tea tray with a reservoir under it. (If you saw "The Blind Banker" episode of "Sherlock," there's a scene showing the Chinese ceramicist character pouring tea this way as part of maintaining the pot.)

In the "Phew, I didn't buy a fake" column*, the pot pours efficiently and elegantly without the need for a strainer, the lid fits snugly and the pot sheds/absorbs water from the overpour almost instantly. Besides, that woodgrain pattern is just gorgeous! (Buying off the internet makes it hard to examine what you're getting and the shipping mixup on the extra teapot set alarm bells ringing in my head. BTW, they emailed yesterday to tell me to please keep the extra teapot as a gift and would I mind giving them a review? So I did: pleased with my purchase but careful to point out how long it took to ship and that they did send that second pot by mistake, which means somebody somewhere did not get their order, so I hope they're fixing that.)

Third steep, darker and even richer because I let it steep for a bit longer. Good stuff, this! 
 

 No place to be this Saturday so I slept in, then decided to look at my recently acquired collection of Little Green Pouches from Verdant Tea and pick out a tea to enjoy. This morning, it's the 2021 Golden Fleece sourced by Wang Yanxin.

This is another tea that smells delicious when you unseal the package and inhale. It was like opening a package of dried apricots. Or maybe mango: sweet and fruity was the main impression, anyway. 

Verdant's website furnishes all sorts of details about each tea. This one comes from 40 year old wild growth Yunnan Da Bei tea bushes grown at an elevation of 2000m (6561 feet: Donner Pass in the Sierra Nevada is 7057 feet) in the Lincan region of Yunnan Province. This batch was picked in the spring of this year. 

First steep: 200F (they recommend 205F, but my kettle settings offer 200F and boiling, so I opted for a slightly cooler temperature), 8-10 seconds, add 3 seconds for each additional steep.  

The aroma keeps the fruit and overlays it with a gently floral note. It's sweet and soft on the tongue. There's a lot going on but it's all subtle and soft and stays that way even as it cools in the cup. "Here, (whiff of jasmine). "Here, (cool silk on your forearm). "Here," (is that apricot)? 

I don't know. I am not an expert and taste is VERY subjective. The tea seller may list things in a flavor profile and I'll be sitting here and going, "Banana? What banana? I don't get banana at all!" 

This is not an in-your-face wake up cuppa. I feel like I should be in a garden pavilion, swathed in silk, composing poetry to the sound of bird song. (Even as a motorcycle starts up next door and sets off the crows.)

The second steep is just as soft and relaxing as the first. About to go for a third. 

Lovely stuff! 

 Last night, Brann MacFinnchad did a tea post around 9PM my time and I thought, "I want tea. No, if I have tea I'll wake up at 3 AM and not get to sleep. Oh, fuck it, tomorrow's Saturday, go make some tea." 

I decided to open up a packet from Old Ways and I honestly do not remember whether this was something I ordered or a freebie they put in my last shipment a few months ago. So I looked it up and determined it was an oolong, set the kettle at 190F and put some in my gaiwan. It is now Saturday afternoon and I am on steep #4. (First steep was 190F for 20 seconds, second was for 30 seconds. Today's steeps were turned up to 200F with no adverse effect and steeped for 45 and 60 seconds.) 

Anyway, Jin Mu Dan (which means "Golden Peony,") is a roasted hybrid of two oolong cultivars. The leaf came out of the packet a deep tobacco-y brown. It steeps to a honey gold in the cup which is probably how it got it's name. Delicate floral aroma and some fruity notes with some sweetness, though I am now noticing a light astringency that makes your tongue feel dry and reach for another sip. That may be because we're several steeps in. 

Nice tea though. 

If you're looking to get into Chinese teas, oldwaystea.com is a good place to start. While their products are all from one tea region, specifically the Wuyi mountains of Fujian Province, they offer a nice variety of teas in amounts that make sampling a breeze (you can buy as little as 5 - 8 grams, which is enough for one or two tea sessions and if you don't like something, you don't feel like you're stuck with a tea that was a dud. Both times I ordered, my package included a free sample and a nice little card thanking me for my order. And they do bundles and a bi-monthly tea club if that appeals to you. 

5/21/21: Yesterday my rapier-legal wakizashi arrived from Castille. The tsuka (hilt), machined out of brushed aluminum, was left bare as specified, because I want to wrap it to match my katana. The blade is 18," which means it's a dagger by SCA rules, but it's got some heft to it, enough that it should be just fine against C&T weapons. 

The tsuka profile of the wakizashi is more oval than the rectangular grip on the katana (also by JTJ), so they were not going to be perfectly matched, but it will pass muster from a few feet away.

For reference information, I used the hiramaki pattern from Thomas Buck's The Art of Tsukamaki. Free for Kindle with diagrams and full color photos, it's an excellent manual.

5/22/21: I soaked the ray skin in a dishpan for about half an hour or so to soften it up, took a pattern off the waki tsuka with some watercolor paper, then patted the ray skin dry with a paper towel. This skin was smaller and a little thinner than the one I used for the katana - in fact, the reason I have it was that I'd ordered it for the katana and it wasn't long enough. Anyway, this time I was able to cut it with shears instead of an X-acto blade. I left it a little long in case of shrinkage, wrapped it around the tsuka with a few old hair ties and let it dry for 24 hours.

I was running out of ito as I neared the end - there was not going to be enough to do a more traditional end-knot over the top of the end cap. Ultimately I finished the wrap off with a neat square knot, trimmed the ito and clamped the ito ends under the end cap. It looks neat, it's not going anywhere, and I'm not going to have to untuck and untie a complicated knot if I ever need to unscrew the end cap again.

What happens when you take Edmond Rostand's "Cyrano de Bergerac," set it in feudal Japan and give the lead to Toshiro Mifune? 

In 1959, Toshiro Mifune was averaging half a dozen films a year, yet, I'm willing to bet many of my readers have never heard of this film. Admittedly, it didn't make it to a US release until 1973, and while the Criterion Channel now offers it on their streaming platform, a decent DVD version has yet to be released. (If Criterion does release it, I will happily buy a copy.) I discovered it via a grainy capture on Youtube some time ago - and I was enthralled. Today I found a decent downloadable version with subtitles here. 

"Life of an Accomplished Swordsman" may be a better translation for the title, but "Samurai Saga" is less of a mouthful and is what you can sometimes find it as. Mifune had previously worked with director Hiroshi Inagaki on the three "Samurai Trilogy" films based on Eiji Yoshikawa's sprawling novel about Musashi MIyamoto.

I am unable to read the Japanese opening credits and have not been able to find anything on who designed the costumes for either the Musashi trilogy or "Samurai Saga," I must lament that fact, because we're talking some proper eye candy.  However, Yoshiaki Ito is credited as the Art Director and Production Design was by Kisaku Ito. (Psst! Criterion! I'm looking at you. Do a nice DVD release!) 

Our story begins in 1600 at an outdoor theater by the Kamogawa River in Kyoto. A group of samurai allied to Lord Tokugawa who have come to see Okuni sing and dance. It's a great scene with a lot of bustling as people come to watch, vendors hawk snacks, and the scene for a confrontation is set. As it happens, we have a painting from about 1603 depicting Okuni dancing with a sword before an audience in just such a theater. (Historical aside: this is generally recognized as the origin of kabuki drama.)

Immediately, We Have Weirdness. These dancers are wearing hairstyles that are much, MUCH later than the period this is supposed to be. I wonder if Toho Studios was able to wrangle some geisha and maiko to perform  the dances, because that's the vibe I'm getting. Yet, when you look at the almost slouchy, kosode with the soft, narrow obi tied on the hip, those are right in the ballpark they should be. And it is a weirdness because there are other women in that crowd scene with hairstyles that look correct for the period. Did the studio not have enough period-appropriate wigs for the cast? I am stumped, because the costumes look quite good for the period. Check out the "boy" costumes, complete with swords, in the second row of dancers and compare to the figure of Okuni in the painting. 

Okuni (Eiko Miyoshi), is old and not particularly attractive - her updo is similar to what one might see on a sex worker of the period. (See my post on the character of Kiku in "Shogun.") She has received a threatening letter warning her not to perform that day. She takes the stage, even as members of the audience speculate as to what will happen next. 

More importantly, a handsome young samurai named Karibe Jurota (Akira Takarada) catches sight of the lovely Princess Chiyo (Yoko Tsukasa, in red and white below) as she and her friends waft into the theatre to take their seats. These ladies look like they stepped right out of the Okuni screen painting. Chiyo-hime is particularly stylish in a dan-gawari uchikake.  

Okuni manages to warble a few nervous notes, until a voice thunders from the back of the theater, accusing her of disloyalty to her late lord and patron Toyotomi Hideyoshi by performing on the anniversary of his death. 

Komaki Heihachiro (Mifune) appears, dressed in the livery of Lord Ishida's retainers. His broad nose with flaring nostrils is a departure from the usual flamboyant beaks seen in depictions of Cyrano de Bergerac. I suspect this might be to do with the legends of tengu, long nosed, dangerous beings of supernatural origins. Long noses are also seen in depictions of Westerners that appear in the Black Ship Scrolls. 


Some of the Tokugawa faction. 

Nice shot of the back of Heihachiro's dobuku. It looks like applique of a pine tree motif. 

Okuni flees the stage, the Tokugawa faction leap out of their seats, and one of them hurls a lame "big nose" insult, which Heihachiro promptly uses to demonstrate that he's not only heard 'em all, he can do much, much better, for he is a poet. Mifune performs the poetry with the stately movements and chants that evoke Noh performances, interspersed with his usual lightning sword-work, but a non-Japanese audience might not get that. So the English subtitle are rhymed couplets for the subtitles, precisely because Japanese poetry doesn't rhyme. Kudos to whoever did the translation. 

This sets in motion a later ambush of one of Heihachiro's similarly liveried friends, Akaboshi (Akihiko Hirata), in which Heihachiro again defeats superior numbers with his mad martial skills.
 
Left: Akaboshi in Ishida livery, different dobuku. Right: Namae is disheveled but still gets pretties to wear. 

Above: A better look at Chiyo's dan-gawari uchikake.

We are treated to a series of scenes in Heihachiro's neighborhood, establishing his kindness to the people around him: a local girl who is crazy or simple (can't really be sure), Heihachiro's "day job" teaching boys to read and write, the innkeeper and wife with whom he lodges, and his relationship with Lady Chiyo. He's always loved her, she looks on him like a brother. 

You know where it's all going. Let's have screen shots! 

 
Left: Heihachiro tells his comrades how he defeated the Tokugawa. Right: Writing poetry at a scenic overlook. Note the gourd and the poems tied to tree branches.

 
Jurota makes some "nose" comments: Heihachiro like's the kid's spirit. Jurota takes on the Tokugawa. He and Heihachiro bond. 

 L
This uchikake with the stripes and morning glories is so gorgeous - and I suspect it was based on this 16th c. portrait of Oinu no Kata. 

  The balcony scene: Chiyo has her uchikake worn koshimaki-style around her waist in a summery style. So pretty. 

Heihachiro and Jurota are among the losing side at the pivotal battle of Sekigahara and Jurota dies of his wounds. (These guys are in fairly simple, basic armor fighting on foot, and things get pretty muddy.)

Chiyo takes lay Buddhist vows and we see her some years later living at a temple. She and the young nun await Heihachiro's monthly visit. As a lay nun, Chiyo still gets some elegant brocade for her uchikake.

Even ten years after the battle, the shogunate is looking for men who supported the opposition. Akaboshi betrays Heihachiro to ambushers and while he gives a good account of himself, a man drops a roof tile on his head, fatally wounding him. 

Heihachiro makes it to the temple at dusk, hiding his injury beneath his hat, tells his news and at last reveals his true feelings for Chiyo. In his final battle he duels the falling cherry blossoms. 

I have always loved the Cyrano story, not for the blockheaded blindness of Roxanne, but for the big heart and indomitable spirit of Cyrano. "Samurai Saga" is faithful to the spirit of the original, and frankly, transplanting the story from France to Japan is a good fit for an adaptation. Mifune is at turns funny and heartbreaking, Akira Takarada makes an appealing Jurota - and yes, he's supposed to be a bit dull, and Yoko Tsukasa's radiance as Chiyo reminds me of Olivia de Havilland. Aside from the hair weirdness in the opening sequence, the costuming is very good for the period it purports to represent. 

You may be able to help bring "Samurai Saga" to DVD. Contact Criterion here. I just did. 

Previously, on "Shogun," we looked at Shin Nishida's women's cosutmes for the epic miniseries and I theorized about why some of them may be anachronistic. Part 1 on Women's Costumes is available at https://gurdymonkey.dreamwidth.org/964754.html

Our hero, John Blackthorne (Richard Chamberlain), begins his journey as the pilot of a Dutch merchant ship, the "Erasmus." It's 1600, all the European powers are vying for profitable trade in the Far East and Blackthorne is convinced he can get his ship through to "The Japans," which the Portuguese have been visiting regularly for several decades. 

We may as well get the European costumes out of the way first. I showed a couple pictures to a Laurel friend who is a specialist in Elizabethan costuming in the SCA and she compared it to what folks were wearing in the late 70's at Renaissance faires in California. 

Blackthorne's kit consists of a reddish brown jerkin (or is a doublet that is missing sleeves?) with a double roll at each shoulder, linen shirt, breeches, stockings and short boots. His crew is a fairly scruffy assortment of shirts, jackets, jerkins and breeches. Shoes range from what appear to be slip-on turn shoes to laced brogans and even latchet shoes on Vinck. 

Vasco Rodrigues (John Rhys-Davies), the Portuguese pilot who is the best of frenemies if one has to have one, gets a couple of costume changes over the course of the series. Finger rings and a pendant or two, plus some metallic ribbon trims indicate he's made his fortune, though the fabrics are a bit odd. We first see him in this odd abstract "brocade" over brown.

This black ensemble has better breeches, but the "velvet" looks more like velour to me. And that hat is clearly a fedora someone slapped a couple feathers on. The brick red ensemble has a better overall look, complete with lacy bits on his collar.   

 The Jesuits get cassocks with a bit of a wing at the top of the shoulder. I don't know enough about clerical garb of the period and the depictions in the namban screens invariable show them wearing cloaks, but it looks all right. The captain of the Black Ship rates a ruff, but his crew is a mishmash that screams of a night raid on the wardrobe department. It's hard to say what Toho Studios and Shin Nishida had access to, but it is what it is and it manages to serve the story well enough. 

There, now THAT's out of the way, we can move on to where "Shogun" shines: the men's costumes. 

I cannot remember if this was in the novel, but someone realized at some point in the early stages of production that an American audience faced with a large, mostly Japanese cast were going to need some help identifying who was doing what to whom for how many cookies and why. Most of the action is not on a battlefield where waves of colored banners and sashimono tell you which side is which. Thus we have the two principle factions coded by color, not just visually, but in the voiceover narration by the late Orson Welles. Toranaga's people are the Browns and Ishido's are the Greys. It doesn't matter if you are the last ashigaru at the end of the line or General Hiromatsu, you appear on screen in the same color brown as everyone else. That even goes for the men at the top. Ishido (Nobuo Kaneko) is shown in silvery greys, while we first encounter Toranaga (Toshiro Mifune) in golden bronze silk. And when Blackthorne is given Japanese clothing to wear, it's in colors that leave no doubt who he is beholden to!

Left: Toranaga and Ishido confer. Right: Browns surrounded by Greys at Osaka Castle. 

Below left: Omi (Yuki Meguro). Right: Yabu (Frankie Sakai).

Toranaga, played by the inimitable Toshiro Mifune, is resplendent, whether holding court, or learning a hornpipe from Blackthorne. (This is my favorite scene ever so I'm linking to a Youtube clip.)

Once the audience can't NOT know who Toranaga is, he gets to branch out and wear Things That Are Not Brown, such as these hitatare in red (left) and olive green (right). 

Crisp and imposing in that gold jinbaori! Grandfatherly with a vassal's children after having cruelly tested the vassal's loyalty. (Be sure and check out the gold tiger painting on the wall too!

Onward to Blackthorne's transformation to Anjin-san and eventually to samurai. His overall look is grounded in earth tones as an indicator of his alignment with Toranaga. We mostly see him in kosode and hakama, often decorated with geometric designs or simple shapes such as waves, wheels, etc., all appropriate for a samurai of modest rank, while still setting him apart from the more liveried look of the Browns. 

Left to right: coming out of prison in yukata, riding out with Mariko in plain hakama and kikko patterned kosode, walking with Mariko in a kosode with water wheels and a basket-weave design on the hakama. 

The "wifi" symbol is actually a traditional wave motif. Right, detail of another nice brown and brown kosode. 

Dharma wheel kosode and cloud motif hakama. This striped kataginu kamishimo is his most formal look. 

A couple of bonus minor characters who are still beautifully and appropriately dressed. Left, an emissary from the Imperial court (with blackened teeth), right, a functionary who meets with Toranaga in a stunning dobuku decorated with crabs.

In summary, the costume design shines for the men's Japanese clothing, which admittedly didn't change a whole lot going into the early Edo period. The women's costumes contain a few anachronisms, which can be laid to Shin Nishida looking at slightly later styles and making artistic decisions in an effort to differentiate the social status of highly ranked women. 

The historical underpinnings for James Clavell's novel can be associated with the actual events surrounding William Adams and his relationship with Tokugawa Ieyasu. You can read about it on Wikipedia, or dig deeper with Giles Milton's excellent book, Samurai William. It looks like there is a more recent book by Hiromi Rogers called Anjin: The Life and Times of William Samuel Adams 1564-1620 that I may have to give a look. 

At one point in the miniseries, Father Alvito presents Blackthorne with a Japanese dictionary. The Jesuit mission in 16th century Japan has left us a trove of documents about the period: a dictionary, a grammar, manuals describing the customs of the Japanese - and I probably need to do a deep dive on the Jesuits in Japan one of these days. 

Part 1 of this costume deep dive began with Kiku. I made the mistake of watching the DVD featurette about "Geisha" and while the scholarly talking heads don't say anything specifically wrong, it's edited in such a way that the uninformed viewer can only believe that Kiku was a geisha. The first geisha ("art persons") were male entertainers arising in the 18th century, with women later taking that role. In 1600 there were courtesans and prostitutes. Kiku's services are engaged as a gift to Blackthorne, and she is described as being "owned" by whoever holds her contract. The unpleasant reality is that girls would be sold to brothels, often because their own families couldn't afford to support them. It was possible to work off one's indenture, but many girls were unable to escape the system and stayed in the pleasure quarters, frequently succumbing to disease or deaths associated with abortions. Kiku has a "happy" ending when Toranaga makes a gift of her contract to Blackthorne to do as he likes with - and he turns around and gives the contract to her lover, Omi. 

Suggested reading: 

Clavell, James. The Making of James Clavell's Shogun (Delta Books/Dell Publishing, 1980). Out of print, but available used, this large paperback includes production stills, costume drawings and other information of interest to fans. 

Dalby, Liza. Geisha (Vintage/Ebury/Random House, 2007). Dalby's anthropological fieldwork in geisha communities gained her an invitation to study how to become a geisha and provides an interesting view from the inside. 

Frois, Luis. The First European Description of Japan, 1585: A Critical English Language Edition Of Striking Contrasts In The Customs Of Europe And Japan (Routledge, 2014). This account by a Jesuit priest compares the ways of the Japanese with the ways of Europeans. Biases towards Buddhist priests in particular abound, however, it remains an interesting look at late 16th century Japanese life. Rental for Kindle is your most affordable option. 

Milton, Giles. Samurai William: The Englishman Who Opened Japan (Penguin Books, 2003). A readable study on the life and times of William Adams, available in paperback. 

Rogers, Hiromi. Anjin: The Life and Times of William Samuel Adams 1564-1620 (Renaissance Books, 2018). I haven't read it but Rogers writes about the Japanese perspective on Adams, so I just ordered a copy this morning. 

I can't figure out how to share this to the Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page (I suspect Ii-dono forgot to give me the appropriate permissions), so it's getting put here. 

The February 2021 of "Age of Samurai: Battle For Japan" on Netflix was sadly, NOT a feast for the eyes of any historical costume nerd. The Canadian production lost its director and had its budget nuked. From orbit, with extreme prejudice. At best it is a confusing jumble of facts spewn by experts whose expertise is undercut by editors who want to make sure you see all the Bright Red Blood and pretty animated maps they did spend their money on. The Covid-19 pandemic didn't help and probably resulted in a lot of shortcutting. Everything is shot at the same locations with a little set re-dressing and it looks like they bought up a bunch of stock armor, vintage kimono and threw it in a pile and said, "Ready, set, go!" At best, we get samurai in solid colored hakama and kimono, at worst, we get Toyotomi Hideyoshi flapping around in home decor fabric so badly sewn you know it was whacked together on an impossible deadline, badly ironed, and flung onto an actor.

And Tokugawa Ieyasu is in a version of another extant garment.   

Nobunaga's informal ensemble is based on a well known portrait.  

Netflix's samurai and daimyo all look underdressed. "Kagemusha's" peasants get decorated clothing and retainers wear livery

Feudal Japan was hierarchical. Clothes denote not only who one is but how much power they wield, how much respect they demand, how much deference they give to their superiors, and so forth. If you go back to the head of this entry to the shot of Shingen, his brother and his peasant double all wearing identical outfits, the body language tells you who is who. 

In feudal Japan you also dress for what you're doing, for what the occasion demands, whether your overlord is holding court or you're making battle plans. 

We even get glimpses of what the women of Shingen's circle would wear. Multilple layers and the woman at right has worn her uwagi koshimaki fashion. And let's enjoy that bright yellow dobuku the kagemusha wears here as he tries to pass with women who knew Shingen intimately: even the daimyo wears flowers. 

In fact his outfit is so scrumptious, let's get a better look as he feigns drunkeness to deceive his women. 

I would happily wear any uwagi in the shot below. Look at everyone in this shot. Look at the peasants at the back. 

The V&A even has one of the costumes in their collection. Go here to see. 

Film costumes are not documentation for SCA purposes, but these are so well done.  Hagakusawa had the budget and the access to the right textiles, properly embellished and used, he copied museum pieces for several costumes. Everyone, including people in the background, looks as they should. 

Here's Nobunaga flaunting a European cape. Spare a glance for the guy walking at his stirrup:neat, crisp, decorated textiles. 

Cute grandson is cute - and dressed as his station befits. 

Less formal women's clothing. 

This is a terrific movie for a lot of reasons: it works as the historical fiction that it is and tells a tale of a man trapped by circumstance into pretending he is someone else. The battles are epic and heart rending. Nakadai is at the height of his powers in not one but two roles. Truly, "Kagemusha" is a feast for the eyes - and I can't wait to sit down and watch it again. 

Some years ago at Estrella War, I taught my "period traditions in tea" class, which included tasting matcha. There was an earnest young man in a poet shirt and kilt who had waxed romantically about having seen "Shogun," and being deeply affected by the tea ceremony scene in which Mariko and her estranged husband engaged. EYM's eyes lit up as I heated water on a camp stove, offered my standard disclaimer about not having formally studied tea ceremony. I whisked up  a ceremonial grade matcha I'd bought in San Francisco's Japantown and sent a couple bowls around the table for people to taste. EYM's took the bowl reverently in his hands, sort of remembered he was supposed to turn it, did so, and vanished into its depths. The appalled, crushed look on his face as he reappeared was that of one whose dreams had been dashed by the bitter grass, seaweed and earth flavor that had invaded his tongue. I assured everyone that it was OK if they didn't like it. 

What is matcha? Simply put, it's powdered green tea. The Chinese practice of grinding tea leaves which had been steamed and dried was brought to Japan in the 12th century by the monk Eisai, who learned it from Chan (Zen) monks. This method of preparing and serving tea was the norm in Japan throughout the medieval period, it was what was done as Zen practitioners such as Murata Juko, Takeno Joo and Sen no Rikyu developed what we know as tea ceremony today. 

Like gyokuro (see yesterday's post), modern matcha is shade grown, the finest buds are picked and dried. The stems and veins are removed, then what is left of the leaves is milled into a fine powder. The grinding process must be done slowly, so that heat build-up doesn't affect aroma or flavor. (Shade growing developed during the 19th century.) EDIT: A feature on NHK 's "Trails to Oishii Tokyo" claimed that shade growing dates to the 16th century. More on this here. https://gurdymonkey.dreamwidth.org/951270.html

Nodoka means "serenity. This matcha is a limited spring release from Ippodo, arriving in a pretty pink box decorated with camelia blossoms. At $17 for 20 grams, it's relatively inexpensive compared with tea ceremony grades. (The website says it will be available through April unless they run out.)

Made as usucha (thin tea): 2g/80ml water brewed at 175 F, whisked vigorously for 15 seconds, per instructions from Ippodo. For "thick" koicha, they recommend 4g/30ml. The website also included matcha latte instructions. 

Nice fresh, grassy green color and aroma, got a decent foam, which abated slightly as I fumbled for my camera. 

Because the flavor is not sharp and overly bitter, this would make a very nice "gateway" matcha. 

Matcha-as-food-flavoring has become very popular. Because it has to blend or compete with what else is going on in the food it's going into, it tends to be much stronger than drinking matcha. Know what grade of matcha you're looking for before buying.

It's a nice, delicate black tea with a hit of honey sweetness at the back. The floral notes are light and subtle. Having tried this, I am now willing to try a proper jasmine tea.

(When I mentioned it on Facebook, Jade said it was good with cheddar cheese and garlic crackers. I grabbed a piece of Tillamook sharp cheddar and tried it. Then I broke into a bag of white cheddar Simply Organic Doritos. Jade commented that black teas are generally what the Chinese drink with food, so that explains it, I guess. Insane how good this tea was with a few chips!)

Second steep, 30s/190F. Third steep, 45s/190F, flavor and scent remained good. By the fourth steep, 60s/190F, the flowers were done, but it was still a nice mild cup of black tea.