Interview with Elena Mathis, Visitor Service Representative and Former HMSC Volunteer
Q. You and your mother travelled to Japan recently. What was the purpose of your trip?
A. Mom trained with Global Japanese Tea Association that ended in a two-week course in Kyoto to become a Japanese tea specialist. She is professionally educated about brewing and tasting Japanese tea. This is different from someone who is tea ceremony educated. The purpose of the trip was to collect supplies for the launch of her Japanese tea teaching career. She felt it was important to buy directly from the farmers and artists as well as make connections/network in person.
Q. Where did you go in Japan?
A. In addition to various famous cities like Tokyo and Kyoto (I loved seeing the giant salamanders at Kyoto Aquarium and shopping for unique fashion in Tokyo), we spent most of the trip in the towns of Shizuoka, Wasaka and Tokoname. The Shizuoka stop was to visit the tea shop Kojima, who carry fine teas blended by a master tea blender. We purchased most of the tea my mom will use in her classes here.
The town of Tokoname is famous for pottery artists and tea ware and produces more kyusu (traditional tea pots) than anywhere else. Originally, it was an industrial town which used massive wood-fired kilns to produce clay pipes and other utilitarian items as well as pottery. Now, it is famous for its artist neighborhood, where hundreds of potters live, work, and sell their craft. Many specialize in tea ware and are truly masterful. We visited during their yearly pottery show, where even more artists arrive and set up shop in a few different convention halls and venues around town. As an artist I found this huge creative community incredibly inspiring.
The town of Wasaka has a large number of tea farms and welcomes in many seasonal workers every year when it’s time to harvest. We went there to purchase the bulk of what my mom will be selling, and to see some of her friends from the tea association.
Q: What is so special about tea in Japan?
A. Most Japanese tea is green tea. The leaves are heated right away to prevent oxidation and keep them from browning, in contrast to black and oolong which has been allowed to oxidize for a more robust taste. Japanese green is lightly steamed, preserving the green taste and emphasizing umami. The minimal processing of the green tea is in line with the Japanese tradition of freshness and light seasoning in food, emphasizing the natural flavor of the ingredients.
Q. What did you learn about growing tea?
A. The tea plant is a long-lived shrub, and every year the new growth is pruned just like a hedge. Those tender leaves are usually what becomes tea. The air smelled like fresh green tea almost everywhere we went. Even abandoned, overgrown fields can be made productive again with a simple pruning. Some fields were on steep, forested hillsides that felt nearly vertical at times. On a morning walk up a mountainside, I stumbled upon an old field where the tea had grown far above my head and rejoined the forest.
Q. What makes one kind of tea different from another?
A. The biggest difference between types of Japanese tea is whether the plant is grown in the sun or the shade. The more shade, the more umami is in the tea. Sencha is the most common tea type, grown in full sun. Matcha is the second most popular, grown in the sun and then shaded right before harvest. Matcha is prepared as a powder and whipped into a froth, while other teas are steeped. Gyokuro is shaded for a number of weeks before harvest, and is the rarest and most expensive of the tea types, with a complex umami-rich flavor. But these teas are really three points on a continuous spectrum, with many other sub-categories in between. Exactly how the tea is grown and how it is labeled depends entirely on the farmer, and they each have their own tricks of the trade to get exactly the taste they want from their crop.
These base teas can be blended with other plants/ingredients for different tastes. This can include flowers, fruits, roasted grains or even wood or bark. The variety of blends I saw and tried was amazing. At a tea-tasting we attended, my favorites were a fresh osmanthus flower tea and a tea made from the trimmings of an overgrown field, which included roasted twigs from the plant alongside the leaves.
Q. Does it matter what kind of teapot and cups you use?
A. The kyusu is the traditional teapot, any kind of tea except for matcha can be brewed in it. Mostly, they are glazed on the inside and can be used for many different teas. Unglazed pots develop a tea patina and should never be used for more than one type of tea. Matcha is made in a bowl with a bamboo whisk. The bowl has a wide bottom, straight sides, and no corners for the powder to get stuck while whisking. I tried doing this myself, and it was a real arm workout!
Q. What is the most important thing about drinking tea in Japan?
A. Tea ceremony and tea brewing rituals are important as a kind of performance and meditation. Clearing the mind and performing a set of practiced actions calms you and has a purifying feeling. We participated in an informal tea ceremony. It felt a bit like a play, with the host and the guests both carrying out a set of practiced motions for every action from sitting down to brewing the tea to taking a sip and even cleaning the teapot. I was amazed how many different art forms come together in a tea ceremony. There’s the tea room architecture and tea garden outside, clothing design, floral arranging for the central piece of room decor, the tea ware from the kyusu pot to the tea canister and bamboo spoon, of course the tea farming and brewing itself, baking the sweets that accompanied the tea, and finally the performance. It felt like an entire town’s worth of creatives had come together to make that moment possible.
Q. Do people need special training to brew and serve tea?
A. To lead a tea ceremony, training with a qualified teacher is required, but many people have their own little tea “rituals” that form based on the precise brewing times and water temperatures that the tea requires. During this trip, it became clear to me that it’s not just about the tea itself, but slowing down, appreciating art in all its fine detail, and being meditatively in the moment.