NEW HARVEST OF TEAS FROM JAPAN
Hosted by Tatsuo Tomeoka (Charaku Fine Japanese Tea)

Tatsuo Tomeoka, owner of Charaku Fine Japanese Tea, lead a tea tasting class on July 18th that explored the variety, history, and culture of Japanese green tea.  We tasted a wide variety of teas from various appellations around Japan from the 2015 new harvest (shincha) tea. Besides regional variations of Sencha, we also experienced the various processing styles that lead to Fukamushicha (Deep-Steamed Tea,) Tamaryokucha ("Coiled, or Ball-rolled" Tea,) Houjicha (Roasted GreenTea,) Genmaicha (Sencha plus Roasted Brown Rice,) and Kukicha (Stem Tea.) We concluded the tasting with Charaku's Premium Organic Matcha, which was accompanied by seasonal, hand-made wagashi sweets from Seattle-based Tokara, one of the few professional Japanese confectioneries in the U.S.