The title of this post is a bit of a joke for those who know me well, since I never really drank tea before. I just hated it for some reason. Since moving to Ireland, I noticed that beverages are a bit different than in Seattle. For example, people espresso in Ireland just as they do in Seattle, but iced drinks are much less common, while more traditional Italian-style espresso is much more commonplace. However, the big difference I noticed was tea-consumption. Like the British, Irish love tea, and drink it a lot more than Americans (or at least Seattlites) did.
Following this, I came back from a recent trip to Japan, and my mother-in-law would always have a small cup of green tea, or ocha (お茶) ready for us. This reminded me many years ago when I was studying abroad in Vietnam. Whenever I was a guest at someone’s house, or even just sitting on the porch, green tea, or chè xanh,* was always served. In both Japan and Vietnam, like all East Asian cultures, the host who served tea keeps an eye on their guests, so if the cup gets empty or near-empty, the polite thing to do is to keep refilling it. It took me a while to understand this, since I didn’t want to drink that much tea, but people keep serving it to me.
Anyways, lately I became interested in green tea after drinking it constantly for two weeks in Japan. The taste is definitely bitter, but once you get used to it, it’s kind of nice. Japanese green tea is pretty bitter, though I recall that Vietnamese green tea was really bitter. Ireland has lots of good tea to offer, and so after a suggestion from a co-worker, I tried one of the local brands, and liked it quite a bit. Then I bought another brand and liked that even more.
Here’s the key in making tea, which is so obvious, I can’t believe I missed it before: don’t make the water too hot! Whenever I heat the water to a rolling boil, or I leave the tea bag in too long, the tea comes out pretty bitter. When I used hot water that is just starting to boil, and leave the tea-bag in for a shorter time, the tea is milder and much more pleasant. Like cooking, it’s better to make tea with lower temperature.
So, for you beginner’s (like me!) here’s a simple guide to making green tea out of the bag:
- Heat water in kettle until it just starts to boil. If the water starts boiling too much, take the kettle off the oven and let it cool down for a few minutes.
- Mix water and tea bag into cup, and let it steep for 3-5 minutes. Do not let it sit any longer.
While there is some concern about caffeine in green tea, I found it to be overrated from personal experiments. After drinking one or two lattes at work,** I found that going to green tea was much, much less stimulating. Actually, I had a bit of caffeine withdrawal for a few days after switching to green tea because the content is so much less. Interestingly though, when I tried to drink a latte again, I found it almost too strong and my head would buzz from all the caffeine. That’s how much caffeine I had been drinking previously.
Other Teas in Japan
Speaking from experience, people drink green tea or “ocha” all the time. It’s pretty much guarenteed to be available at any restaurant or house you visit, and green tea comes in bottles and jugs at convenience stores as well. However, I noticed people drink other ones as well:
- Barley Tea, or mugicha (麦茶). This has no caffeine, and has an interesting, earthy flavor. It tastes good when served cold, so it’s popular in the summer.
- Hōji Tea, or hōjicha (焙じ茶). This is yet another popular blend of tea, consisting of green tea that’s been roasted over charcoal, producing a more smoky, earthy flavor. Thanks to Dan, Jeannie, Jishin and Matthew for reminding me of this one.
- Oolong Tea, or ūroncha (烏龍茶). This is Chinese tea, but it’s well known in Japan so you’ll sometimes see it.
Wikipedia seems to list a lot of other teas, but these seem to be more luxury items, or provincial specialties, not in frequent use. The ones above seem more common place.
So that’s tea in a nutshell. 
Namu Amida Butsu
* – This is Northern Dialect, which I learned in Hanoi. It’s pronounced like “cheh sine”. The Southern Vietnamese term would be trà xanh, which sounds more like “chah sanh”.
** – It wouldn’t be a European office without espresso machine. 
This blog is the reflection of my efforts to explore fatherhood, Buddhism and my love of Japanese culture. Anything useful I can pass along makes the Internet hopefully a better place.
Yay a topic I know well!
I was really into Hoji Cha for a couple years – couldn’t get enough of it. Maybe had 3 brewings a day of the loose-leaf variety. I’ve tried it recently, but the bagged YamaMotoYama just isn’t the same…
I also learned all about Matcha from that tea ceremony class back in the day, but what an impractical way to drink tea!
Of course my in-laws and my wife drink a lot of tea, but it was actually my mother-in-law that got me to start drinking coffee. Actually my wife also. I am 38 but I only started drinking coffee about 4 years ago because they did and they wanted me to drink coffee with them. Whenever I go to Japan, of course we have tea, but we often have coffee. Especially at places like Starbucks.
How ’bout drinking Houjicha (焙じ茶)? To me, it is not as bitter, tastes somewhat like coffee, and has less caffeine than its non-roasted counterpart.
P.S. I am a huge tea drinker, especially green tea.
Yes Hojicha is roasted green tea and very popular in Japan as an alternative to Ocha.
Personally I am a bit of a philistine and enjoy Starbucks Matcha Latte.
Hi,
I recently found your site through Tornado28′s “As I see Japan… From LA”. I’m really impressed. I wish my Japanese was 1/10 as good as yours.
I’ve been a green tea drinker for a few years. My favorite is from Uji. Of course you can get the standard variety of Ocha, Bancha, Houjicha, Matcha. Japanese tea was definitely something I didn’t acquire a taste for until I was an adult… but my girls drink it no problem. Here’s the website of my favorite tea shop; http://www.tokichi.jp/
I enjoy Matcha, but there aren’t many people in Spokane WA who would appreciate tea ceremony…. so I keep that to myself! HA!
Hey thanks for all the work you’ve done on this site, I’ll definitely tag it on mine.
Matthew
Oh, a tea drinker’s must is the electric hot water dispensers found in every Japanese families’ home, set right to 208degrees F. (Lower if you are using tea bags instead of leaves.)
Before getting one of these I would always boil the water than add about a cup or less of cold water and it worked quite well.
Wow, lots of great comments from everyone.
Dan: I vaguely remember your tea drinking back in the ol’ college days, so it’s great to have you weigh in here. I totally forgot about hoji-cha. I may update the blog post accordingly. Was the tea-ceremony class the one taught at the U? I never took that, but always wanted to. It does look pretty impractical though.
Tornado: Actually I am in a similar situation, but in my case, I got my wife’s family turned on to coffee. While in Japan, we all drink lots of green tea, but from time to time we’ll visit Starbuck’s or partake of those wonderful iced coffees. I love Boss Coffee for example.
Jeannie: That’s a second vote for Hoji-cha. I’ll update the blog.
Jishin: Vote #3. I’ll update the blog for sure now. I haven’t tried the matcha lattes, but my wife did and didn’t like them. I guess she found them too sweet. I thought they were not bad.
Matthew: Welcome to the new JLR. This blog has existed less than a week (see “about” section for more history), so I appreciate the kind words. I am originally from Seattle (Bellevue actually), so I know what you’re talking about with regard to Spokane.
The tea brewing temperature is a matter of taste. A rough guideline states that black teas should be seeped in near boiling water, oolongs somewhere around 190F to near boiling, and green and white teas at much lower temperatures. Oolongs, in particular, could either be seeped for several minutes at a very low temperature, or for shorted periods of time in near boiling water. This will reveal two different tastings of the same tea.
I use a digital temperature thermometer with a probe placed inside the tea kettle, and set an alarm several degrees below the temperature I want, so that I can pull the kettle off the heat in time.
I think with Japanese green tea you want to get the temperature down to about 80C. The leaves you can use more than once. With fresh leaves probably best to steep for about 2-3 minutes. If it is the third or fourth brew then 30 seconds to a minute maximum.
Doug – yes Starbucks matcha latte is sweet. I like sweet tea but do not need to add any sugar. I long for them to introduce them to London but I can’t see that happening soon…..
I drink a lot of tea, a big cup of jasmine flavoured green tea every morning
And on my days off work I prefer Long Jing, a most excellent green tea. You really have to try it if you haven’t already. I like oolong, but it’s not a big favourite, also it’s hard to find high quality oolong here. Generally I prefer chinese tea over japanese, but I drink gyokuro sometimes.