Wojciech Bońkowski
Master of Wine

My first chanoyu

Our modest chanoyu setup.
The visit of Tsuyoshi Ishikawa, a fellow tea lover from Japan, to Warsaw has triggered an impromptu Japanese tea ceremony – in fact my first of the kind. While I’ve blogged before on matcha – the ceremonial grade of powdered green tea from Japan – I’ve always been drinking it in the home context, without the aesthetic and philosophical ornament that surrounds a proper chanoyu. Here was an occasion to set my mind differently. 
It worked, it really worked. Between the two of us we gathered all the necessary tea equipment from the bamboo whisk and matcha sifter to the precious chawan bowl and the indispensable cast iron tetsubin. The latter was a recent acquisition of mine – a small handy 1-liter piece of outstanding craftsmanship from Kunzan (sourced from Hojo; see photo above). It really has a colossal influence on the taste of the water and the texture of the tea. Through Tsuyoshi’s carefully orchestrated moves we were transported into the timeless domain of tea contemplation, and the distant hassle of the main restaurant room above us seemed to gradually fade away. Drinking matcha is as much about the flavour as it is about the tactile and temporal experience of making and imbibing it. 

After Tsuyoshi prepared both koicha (thick tea, which is in fact a paste that you rather eat than drink) and the more relaxed usucha (thin tea), it was my turn to try my hand at the ceremonial preparation. The central act of dosing, whisking and serving went pretty well, I think; now it’s time I practiced those impossible complex origami-like movement you make with the ceremonial napkin. 
Yours truly whisking duly.
Tsuyoshi kindly left me the can of matcha to enjoy at home. I have no idea where it comes from (perhaps readers with a grasp of Japanese will recognise it on the pictures below). It’s a solid grade, good enough for making koicha. It is a little less sweet and aerial than the 2008 Kinrin from Marukyu-Koyamaen I reviewed in this post, with a more pronounced vegetal flavour (but not bitter). On several attempts I found it rather hard to whisk to a very fine froth; the best I got still had some random big beer-like bubbles. A good tea in any case.

[Edit: Tsuyoshi Ishikawa has kindly confirmed this Uji matcha is the Unjo-no-Tomo from Shohokuen].


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2008 Kinrin Matcha

I realised I have never on this blog written about matcha. I can’t say I’m a regular drinker of this powdered Japanese speciality, but I do enjoy it from time to time. It’s one of those teas which you really have to feel like. It’s an acquired taste, and it’s an acquired thing to organize the matcha equipment, do all the right gestures and set your mind to patience mode as you try to achieve that reasonably perfect state of froth in the chawan, the matcha cup. 
I’m mostly feeling like matcha in the springtime, in those mornings when I’m up earlier than usual, when the injection of vegetal freshness and the little ritual that surrounds it just fit in fine in the early hours pace.
One thing that has prevented me from posting was a lack of proper chawan. In all honesty I was using a rice bowl. There somehow was always a more urgent tea expense (and chawans can get quite pricey, too). During a recent stay in Cracow I poped in for a up at Czarka, a teahouse beautifully located in a medieval cellar, and I got this properly manufactured, good-looking and irresistibly inexpensive (9€) chawan. 

Today’s matcha is the 2008 Kinrin from Marukyu-Koyamaen. It’s mid-priced among their many matchas (this 20g can was ¥1200), but is good enough to qualify for koicha (thick tea) making. Though it’s a 2008, I’ve only opened the can this week, so it’s reasonably fresh (important for matcha).
This tea powder is a light pastel green colour, with a tangy, sweet green fruit aroma, froths well, and delivers a more than enjoyable cup. The colour of the brewed tea is again a light green, more a Tiepolo celadon than a deeper emerald. The flavour is subdued, a little sweet, with not a hint of astringency. The finish is long and vegetal but never really tannic. For the little comparative context that I have, this is very good matcha indeed. 
Many sources will tell you matcha is more something to experience than to taste. As pretentious as it sounds, it’s exactly the truth. There’s little I can produce in the sense of meaningful tasting notes. It’s more about the process of making matcha (requiring so much more physical participance than normal tea) and that sensation of smoothness as you sip it in small sips. Through the painstaking process of grinding tea leaves to one of the finest existing grades of powder, and the process of mixing, beating and frothing that powder up to a bodiless emulsion, matcha is tea made aerial. It’s the breath of the tea tree – just fine to enjoy during a humid, zesty, exhilarating springtime.
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