shimabara tea

Recently there was a Nagasaki Fair in Umeda.

We love these fairs because it brings different food items to us without the extra online shipping fees.

Shimabara tea is a relatively new company, and we were able to sample (and purchase) some of their teas.

The large red package is their organic green tea.

The smaller red package is their black tea and the yellow package is their black tea with ginger.

(The ginger tea and black tea are delicious and the ginger one has a nice kick!)

The man selling these teas was very knowledgeable.

He suggested we put some of the organic tea with ice for two hours and let the ice extract the tea...

So I tried doing it his way...

except I didn't have a tiny pot to do this in, so I made my own...

After an hour it looked like this.

After two hours the tea was a really light green but it wasn't bitter.

He then suggested that we add some cold water (drink it), then some warm water (drink it), then some hot water (drink it).

By the time we tried it with some hot water, the tea was a little darker green and a little cloudy.

There was a slight bitterness to it too.

His last suggestion was that we "eat" the used tea leaves because this green tea is organic.

So we tried it with a little ponzu (citrus soy sauce) like he also suggested...delicious! kind of like spinach, only a little bitter.

We're glad we tried this and will continue to keep an eye for them in the future since they do not sell online.