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Prior to the official launch of our new tour that includes a tea ceremony and Kaiseki lunch, we are doing a private tour next week. Today we went to the venue to make sure everything is fine to welcome our first guests. Here’s some pictures taken there. Have a sneak preview for now as we will launch the tour at the end of June!  

We will launch our new tour at the end of ...

As we are going to welcome our very first guests on our very first tour on May 9th, we visited Doi-en again for one last meeting last week. Mr. Doi, the owner served us Shin-cha, a tea that’s made of the first fresh leaves of the season, only available at this time of the year. He served us 2 cups of the same Shin-cha, but with different water temperatures. Did you know depending on the water temperature, the same tea leaves end up tasting totally different, due to the different melting points of what’s contained in a tea leaf? On […]

Experience this surprisingly different tastes of Shin-cha!

Let’s try ” Morning Zazen (Zen meditation) “ – Part1 I tried morning ” Zazen “ at a temple in this morning. It is a splendid experience. ” Zazen “ is the basic ascetic practices method of the Zen. I was always interested because it was said that the tea ceremony was based on a thought of the Zen Buddhism. Let me introduce that I learned today. It is important to put one’s heart at this now moment. Don’t think about the thing of the person except oneself and the past and the future. Then we begin to hear the […]

Let’s try ” Morning Zazen(Zen meditation) ” – Part1

The other day, I had “Matcha Affogato” for the very first time at a cafe in Tokyo. Affogato is a traditional Italian espresso-based treat that I am sure many of you have tried before. This one, however, is matcha on top of matcha ice cream served with red beans jam and rice‐flour dumplings! As much as I loved the taste, I loved the way they served it; you get to whisk matcha and put it on the ice cream yourself! It was a bit of a Zen moment in the heart of Tokyo! lol

“Matcha Affogato” for the very first time at a cafe ...

As you may know, Matcha is used in many types of Western confectioneries here in Japan. Today we had a guest who brought us a Matcha roll cake of Jiichiro, a confectionery from Shizuoka. Shizuoka is a prefecture that produces almost 40% of green tea in Japan! We had it with Starbucks coffee for a change, and actually it matched pretty well! lol

A Matcha roll cake of Jiichiro

This morning on Sunday is started for Okinawa kokutoh (Shima kokutoh) Matcha Latte and a croissant.！！！   Okinawa kokutoh (Shima kokutoh) is a specialty in ”Okinawa” famous for longevity. It contains many mineral and vitamin very much.Therefore it’s said that they have the benefit of health maintenance, fatigue reduction, activation of brains and a diet. Instructions  

Morning Matcha – Okinawa kokutoh Matcha Latte