Tea in Tahara

Sometimes food is more than food, and tea is more than tea. When it is created by love, there is magic and power in it. 

I experienced this in Tahara city, a rural community with a lot of farms, population of about 63,000. I was there to visit my friend Noriko who stayed with us when she was in Ottawa studying English. She brought so much into my life in Ottawa, and she was a good cook as well. She helped me with some of the cooking for ZenKitchen pop-up dinners, we worked together to make an elaborate Japanese New Year’s celebration breakfast for my friends, and she would often have a Japanese dinner ready for us when we got home from work. :)

Noriko took me to see the ocean, a 20 minute drive from her hometown, and we walked along the beach. We were the only ones. It was a hot and humid day but also windy, overcast and foggy so you couldn’t see the beautiful mountains or much of the ocean. However, I love the ocean and it was beautiful to walk along the beach, with the high winds and the waves crashing, and the surfers out enjoying this. At the end of our walk, I noticed a building near the parking lot. She said it was a store with local food products and did I want to go in?  What a funny person she is!

The Tahara city area is in the Aichi prefecture, which is surrounded by mountains and the ocean, and the landscape is filled with farms and rice fields. This results in an abundance of local produce and food products. In Tokyo and Osaka, I hadn’t seen a lot of fruit that was accessible, meaning that it was usually quite expensive and all wrapped up carefully in plastic in tiny portions. The vegetables were more accessible but I stuck to the Japanese vegetables like mizuna, daikon and Japanese mushrooms that seemed fresher and cheaper.  

In the store at the beach, the produce from local farms was plentiful, fresh, and seemed reasonably priced compared to Canadian prices.There was produce that we are more used to at home such as local tomatoes, lettuce, cabbage, potatoes, and eggplants, along with some Japanese vegetables. There was also a special Musk melon that the region produces and sells for about 2,200 yen or $22 US each. Most fruit continues to be expensive in Japan, especially melons, which most Japanese love.

 

 

local agar agar

 

There are also special products the region makes, including miso, every region seems to have a different kind of miso they make and theirs is very dark almost like hatcho, wakame, oil, agar agar, rice and green tea.

When we arrived back home, Noriko said that her father wanted to have us over for a matcha tea ceremony without the ceremony. Apparently he had studied tea ceremony a long time before he got married and since Noriko was a child he has enjoyed making matcha tea for her family in a more casual manner. Her father and mother were babysitting her sister’s two children, two and four, and they were excited to be participating in tea ceremony.

I was surprised at first, “isn’t the tea too strong for them?” I asked. Noriko said they make it weak for them. I guess it’s the same as having a tea party when I was a young girl, but this one is real, and no wonder the girls love it. I loved the ceremony without the structure, and perhaps those who are reading this who have studied Japanese tea ceremony for a long time might cringe at the lack of formality. I think it’s a great way to introduce children to the joy of sharing and drinking tea, with all the proper customs associated with it. It’s the same way with cooking.I feel introducing it in a fun, simple way to children would go a long way from them not being afraid or hesitant to cook when they are older.

First the presentation of the sweets

 

Eating dango, rice dumplings

 

Eating yokan, sweet red bean

 

Tea service and bowing in acceptance and gratitude, at 2 years

The tea ceremony started with sweets, including yokan (red bean cake) and dango (rice flour dumplings with soy glaze), which I adore, and apparently so do the kids. They ate the sweets in the usual excited manner that kids do but also with restraint to, sitting properly, eating it in small bites with a special bamboo toothpick you are given, putting it down between bites on the delicate rice papers you are given. We didn’t even do that when we had wagashi at the tea ceremony with Fumiko the other day and were embarrassed when we noticed how everyone ate after we gulped down our wagashi. Everyone, including the man, had broken the wagashi cake in half with the toothpick and had eaten it slowly, keeping the other half on top of the rice paper, to be eaten later. Well, the two year old did this, albeit a bit clumsily and awkwardly, as she is two after all.

 

One at a time, the father would prepare the matcha tea expertly in the large clay bowls with the bamboo whisk, and the mother would bring it to one of us in the living room. I loved the two year old as she participated in the ceremony, bowing first with her grandmother mother and saying the appropriate words of appreciation and respect, and then drinking the tea from the bowl in the way she was taught. It was too adorable!

After we had our teas, the father asked if I wanted to learn how to make matcha. He gave me pointers on the making of it, serving of it, and drinking of it, which was fascinating for me. He was so kind, patient and passionate about making and sharing tea.

 

I will remember forever the tea in Tahara city because it was more than tea. It was an act of generousity and love from Noriko’s father to his family and their guest. Lucky me!