Japanese tea tools, explained from Japan.
Most English guides tell you which teapot to buy. Almost none tell you what to do with it afterwards — how to season a cast iron kettle, why your kyusu smells, what the film inside the spout actually is.
I live in Japan and use these things every day. This site is the part that usually gets left out.
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Most write-ups of Sakurai Japanese Tea Experience in Aoyama come from one visit. I have been going for seven years. This is what it changed in my kitchen.
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Every umeshu recipe calls for white liquor. A bartender told me to try aged dark rum. I made both, eight years apart, and they are not the same drink.
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English umeboshi recipes all call for a weight on the plums. I have never used one. Ten days in a glass jar, and the trick that gets the brine to rise.
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Under ten seats and a tree, beneath a Ginza department store. I buy my leaf there a little at a time, and that matters more than which shop you pick.
白露Hakuro · the white dew