I finally have time to upload this!!! *grin* It’s 2.20am now and I’m brain dead but I’m gonna try to finish this anyhoo… *laugh*

My Japanese language school recently organized a trip to Hotel Okura for give us a first hand experience with the traditional Japanese tea ceremony. *smile* Coincidently, it was also the same day that Janice@Jzelynn arrived from KL along with my ‘tumpang’ stuff – long sundresses, slippers and maggi mee. *laugh*

So on that very same day I got to wear slippers and a sun-dress for a change, the first time in 6 months!!!! Believe me, my feet had never been happier than they were that afternoon. *laugh* BTW, the weather in Tokyo today was insanely hot! It went up to 26 degrees in the afternoon and making my way to class in the heat reminded me so much of home. *laugh*

Back to the tea ceremony, I actually took a video of the preparation itself but I’ll leave that to the next post. For now, here are the pics from the quaint little tea house at the hotel. Take it as my little introduction to the post. Hehe.

In this room, we were introduced to the art of drinking matcha (finely-milled Japanese green tea). The preparation and consumption of this sort of tea was actually formed into a ritual by Zen Buddhists during the Song Dynasty, later brought in to Japan in 1191 by monk Eisai.

In Malaysia we’re so used to matcha being associated with ice-cream in Japanese restaurants but after doing some research I finally learnt that there was more to matcha than just being used in ice-cream. *laugh* To start, did you know that it’s actually made from shade-grown tea leaves, meaning the tea bushes are actually covered to prevent direct sunlight?

This is meant to slow down growth, turn the leaves a darker shade of green and cause the production of amino acids which make the resulting tea sweeter. *wink*

Only the finest tea buds are hand picked to be dried, de-veined, de-stemmed, and stone grounded into the fine, bright green, talc-like powder we are all familiar with. The fact that it can take up to one hour to grind 30 grams of matcha justifies the exorbitant prices high grade machas can fetch.

I’ll go into the preparation of this tea in the next post since I have a video of it but for now I’m gonna finish up a few things and head to bed. I’ve got my final recording session for the week tomorrow afternoon so gotta get some rest and gather all my energy to give it my best. Wah…I can’t believe I just rhymed that!!! *laugh* Rapper in the making? *laugh* Yo, yo, yo~ Haha. Hope the rest of you will enjoy the weekend just as much as I will in the studio! *smile* Hugs~