Happy Tea Day!? - Tea-Scented Softener -

November 1^st is known as “the day of black tea” in Japan because it was considered the very first day when Japanese ever had “black tea”. 

To mark the day, FaFa Japan Co., Ltd will put tea-related goods on sale, not TEA itself. That is an English rose tea-scented softener. It seems that this aroma is selected to give the impression of elegant and grace of Britain. 

Do you fancy using it? Maybe....I’m not going. :-)

Photo Frm FaFa Japan Co.,Ltd

Japanese-Flavored Halloween

When I worked at an English school for kids about 15 years ago, it was hard to find Halloween-related goods. People didn’t show much interest in the event. Now, the story is so different. According to a report, the economic effect of Halloween reached 110 billion yen last year. This is much more than other Japanese traditional events and more than Valentine's day, which is also loved by Japanese people. What's going on here! 

When the season comes, the city is covered with orange color. People wearing costume get together and have a party, and spend a lot of money.

And this year more wagashi, traditional Japanese sweets, seems to joins the event. Can you see the sweets?

by kozakuraya

I believe that we can say that Halloween is now a part of Japanese custom. Enjoy Halloween over the cup of tea and wagashi :-) 

by Aoyagi

Go to Drugstore for Tea !?

According to a dictionary, a “drugstore” is a shop where drugs and medicines are sold or given out, and where you can buy cosmetics, some household goods, and drinks and snacks. Right. That’s what I know about a drugstore. Japanese drugstores are also like that. 

Some of them, especially the ones located around the area for tourists have become like “tea shop”. I already knew tons of Matcha sweets and foods are sold there. 

Full of Matcha snacks 

Recently, tea such as Sencha and Hojicha are on the shelves. And what is more surprising, they are BIG! One-kilogram bag!!! I’ve never seen such a big bag at the retailers. That’s for wholesalers!! Obviously, they are for tourists from abroad, but I’m curious how many bags are sold a day.

1 KG Hojicha and Green tea

The British Fair in Japan 2015

For Anglophiles in Japan, a much-talked and long-awaited event “The British Fair” was held at a major department store in Osaka. It is an annual event. Every year, we, British-lovers, become so excited around this time of the year. 

Tens of thousands people inundated this site during the fair. So many queues of people were seen here and there waiting to have fish and chips, scones, tea, muffins, sticky toffee pudding, jam, Shepard's pie, welsh cake....etc.

The Bridge Tea Room

Double Winners of the UK's Top Tea Place and 
the Home of West Country Afternoon Teas

RINGTONS TEA

 A horse carriage, which was used to deliver tea to there customers, was at the site in Japan. Also, Mr Smith, the president and Mrs Smith came to Japan and held the short lecture for us.

                                                           Take-away scones from

                                        Shangri-La Hotel, At The Shard, London.

                                                

Being a tea -lover, I didn't queue for Fish and Chips (Sorry!), but I did for scone and tea! 

Why do we love "Britain"?? Actually, not only Britain, but other countries too. We love foreign culture and food!!

From Tea Cooking to Tea Entertaiment

Nowadays, green tea-flavored sweets are everywhere. What about green tea dishes?

Even in Japan, it is not that common other than tea-producing areas.

I joined a tea cooking class held in one of the tea places, Ujitawara town in Kyoto.

These are what we cooked and ate.

*Tea-flavored mushed potato’s deep fried chicken roll

*Chawanmushi (literally "tea cup steam" ) is an egg custard dish with tea thick sauce

*Tea furikake (rice seasoning sprinkled on a bowl of rice)

*Fish carpaccio with tea flavored sauce

*Matcha affogato

Even the vegetable we used are grown the town. I feel like I had full of “Ujitawara”.

After that, we went the local tea farms, which was a nice walk after a big meal.

Before I forget, I would like  to mention this. One of stuff members showed us “tea juggling” not cocktail juggling. You might say "What is that!!??" I couldn’t take a movie long enough, but why don't you click it?

And these are teas what he made! Surprisingly....they were good.

We enjoyed Ujitawara tea from food to entertainment :-)

Japanes Tea Day this and that

There seem to be two different “Nihoncha no hi”, the day of Japanese tea. One is October 1, the other one is October 31. 

The former is decided by ITO EN, LTD to commemorate Grand Kitano Tea Ceremony held by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a warrior commander, on October 1, 1587. 

The latter is set by a Japanese tea institution. It is believed that Yosai (or Eisai), a Buddhist priest, brought back some tea seeds and its manufacturing process from Sung to Japan for the first time on the day in 1192.

Interestingly, I’ve found other tea days. According to my research, "Matcha no hi (Matcha day)" is February 6, and "Genmaicha no hi (Genmaicha day)" is November 1. I didn’t know that, ha, ha. 

Each institution and company has its own good excuse to promote tea. Hope it works!!

Toyotomi Hideyoshi -Wikipedia-