2013.5.25

I went to grocery shopping this morning.  There were many people at the supermarket because they had special offer to give 10 times points as usual.  I may have bought too much for a week.  I bought some Japanese sweets and made powdered green tea (抹茶: maccha)　in the afternoon.  I called my tea master and asked their lesson schedule.  I decided to learn tea ceremony again from June.

５月２日（gogatsu futsuka）： May 2

May 2 is known as hachijyuhachi ya (八十八夜), literally 88th night. It is the 88th day from risshun (立春), the first day of spring. It is the best season for sowing. In the tea plantation, it is the season for chatsumi (茶摘み), tea picking.
The most beverage drunk in the world must be water. Second maybe coffee or tea. They say there are two worlds, people drink much coffee or much tea. Japan is tea country in that sense, I think. There are many kinds of tea in Japan. Sencha (煎茶): green tea of middle grade, genmaicha (玄米茶): green tea with brown rice, bancha (番茶): coarse tea, houjicha (ほうじ茶), roasted tea, maccha (抹茶): powdered tea.
In the tea ceremony we use maccha, and make tea with bamboo whisk called chasen (茶筅). We eat sweets before drinking this kind of green tea because it is so thick and bitter. I like green tea. How about you?

五月二日（gogatsu futsuka）： May 2

May 2 is known as hachijyuhachiya (八十八夜), literally 88th night. It has been 88 days since risshun (立春), the first day of spring. It is a peak season of picking tea leaves.
Japanese people love to drink tea. There are many kinds of tea among ryokucha (緑茶:green tea) such as gyokuro (玉露), sencha (煎茶), bancha (番茶), genmaicha (玄米茶), and hojicha (ほうじ茶).
The most famous prefecture of tea production is Shizuoka (静岡). About 200,000 ton is produced. Other famous prefectures are Kagoshima (鹿児島), Mie (三重), Miyazaki (宮崎) and Kyoto (京都).
Globally China produces 28.8%, India 24.5%, Sri Lanka 8.5%, Kenya 8.5% and Turkey 5.6%. Japan ranks in 8th and produces 2.5%.
Green tea is good for your health. I recommend you to drink green tea. We drink it straight.

三月二日（sangatsu futsuka）： March 2

It was rather cold again, and slightly rained.

What is your favorite drink?
Japanese people like to drink tea. There are many kinds of tea. Green tea is ryoku cha(緑茶) in Japanese. There are some grades among ryokucha. The high quality is gyokuro (玉露), medium quality is sencha (煎茶), and low quality is bancha (番茶). The roasted tea is called hojicha (ほうじ茶). Green tea with roasted brown rice is called genmaicha (玄米茶). Powder tea is konacha (粉茶). And green tea used for the tea ceremony is called maccha (抹茶). Cha(茶) means tea.
Some Chinese tea such as oolong tea or jasmine tea are also popular in Japan.
Black tea is also drunken.
All of these tea are from the same tea tree. But the producing process is different.
There are various pet bottles of tea in Japan which I missed a lot when I was in the USA because most of the cooling beverages in the USA were either mineral water or sweet soft drinks.
We drink green tea straight.