It will be a great chance to try our best Uji Tea available. I believe you will be delighted with its taste and aroma. For the Tea Sets, these are worth having one at your home. Best to extract Uji Tea at your home, but also best for gifts to your important person.

In 1911, the Sung dynasties, Eisai who was a master of Zen brought back tea seeds to Japanese from China and taught Japanese people about matcha tea ceremony technique. In1207, saint Myoue in Madarao kozanji temple, Kyoto sowed the seeds inherited from Eisai in the field of Uji, which was that the origin of Uji tea. In Muromachi period, the Ashikaga shogunate encouraged the people to grow Uji tea, which spread the brand name and how wonderful Uji tea is.

Uji tea is the Japanese traditional tea that produced in the south of Kyoto. And also Uji tea is defined as that 100 percent of tea leaves are produced in Kyoto. Additionally, the following tea also can be called Uji tea. It is that over 50 percent of the tea leaves is produced in Kyoto and blended with the tea leaves produced in Shiga, Nara, and Mie of Kansai region.

Shizuoka tea from Shizuoka in Kanto region and Yame tea from Fukuoka in Kyushu region also taste good, but the teas mixing with tea leaves from other areas can not be called “Uji tea”. Are you wondering why I mention about it? The Uji tea brand is really high-impact even though that tea is produced in small quantities. Therefore, fake brand-name products targeted at foreigners have increased. There are some bad people who disguise the tea from different area as Uji tea because the people who are good on geography of Japan are very few in other countries.

Since I was born in Uji, I consider I have to fight against the sad fact. “Matsusaka Suishoudo” which provides us at Akiba Mart with the Uji tea is the real Uji tea commission agent.  We are proudly introducing the real Uji tea to customer in the world through Akiba Mart.
Honestly, the price is far from cheap…. however, it is the real Uji tea I would like you to drink!!!  Please try it at Akiba Mart!!!

Genuine Uji Matcha Tea
Genuine Uji Gyokuro Tea
Genuine Uji Sencha Tea

The following picture is major production areas of Japanese tea for reference.

Major Japanese Tea Production Areas

The secret of reducing the body fat is in the catechin of the astringency element included in Japanese green tea.

It has three effects of reducing the body fat though the catechin is a kind of the polyphenol.

1. Effect of burning fat by catechin

Fat burns by the working of “the enzyme of burning fat” in the liver, and is changed into energy. Catechin has an effect of making working of the enzyme of burning fat in the liver active and burning fat efficiently.

2. Effect of burning more calories by catechin

The catechin has antioxidant properties, normalizes the condition of lipid in the blood, and promotes the circulation of blood.It burns more calories in the body as a whole, reduces body fat, and change into lean habit of body by promoting the circulation of blood.

3. Interfering with fat absorption by catechin

The fat taken by meal is absorbed into the body by working of bile acid in intestine. The catechin has the effect of interfering the absorption of fat by this bile acid. Therefore, it becomes difficult by drinking tea during and after a meal to enhance the quantities of cholesterol in the blood and the body fat.

It is necessary to take about 500mg of the catechin to decrease the body fat simply by drinking tea when guessing from research results by various research laboratories every day. It is necessary to drink seven cups of tea or more to take about 500mg of the catechin though it depends on how to brew tea.
Dieting with only tea is quite difficult, but it is safe to say that drinking Japanese tea become of considerable help for dieting by your appropriate exercise and proper nutrition.

Why don’t you incorporate Japanese tea into daily eating?

It is because a lot of vitamins C are contained in Japanese green tea. When the mind and body is stressed, internal organs called adrenal gland in the inside of the body makes a large amount of adrenal cortex hormone(steroid), increase blood glucose levels, and helps resistance for mind and body to develop. Vitamin C is necessary for synthesizing this adrenal cortex hormone. Therefore, the consumption of vitamin C rises in a stress situation. Vitamin C is readily available for adrenal gland in a stress situation by taking vitamin C usually a lot, so the body becomes strong to stress. 

Moreover, there is an effect of untangling nerves and relaxing also in vitamin E.  So Japanese tea ceremony is very effective in the relaxation, because vitamin E can be taken by drinking Matcha.

It is understood to relax because the teanin contained in tea acts on nerve cells in brain, too. It is elucidated teanin in green tea affects nerve cell in a brain that relax the feeling. The stress is decreased by these effects gotten by drinking green tea, and we can be relaxed.

Aside from drinking, you can get the effect for relaxing from smell. Because, an intense grassy-green odor of freshly cut green grass and leaves that is called leaf alcohol and leaf aldehyde are contained in the element of smell in green tea and they have the effect for relaxing.

A tea incense burner ( Cha Kouro ) is very useful for the relaxation to ensure aroma at home.

High-quality Japanese tea like Gyokuro, these tea leaves are grown under the screen to prevent exposing to sunbeam. This is because sunbeam will make tannin, which is the source of astringency. So gyokuro itself has less tannin, less astringency. Although, if you use boiling water to prepare Gyokuro, tannin will be extacted from the leaf. This is the reason that you should NOT use too hot water for Gyokuro. Proper temperature of the hot water for Gyokuro will be around 60 degrees Celcius, however more lower temperature will be better if you don’t want to extract tannin at all.

Then what is the lowest temperature water for Gyokuro? This question is same as asking “What is the lowest temperature of water?”. Yes, its zero degrees Celcius

So, I tried ice extraction. It’s so simple.

Put 4 grams of Gyokuro on a saucer (believe or not, tea pot is better! lol), and put couple of ices on the leaf. That’s it!

Wait patiently until the ices melt down. Move extracted tea to a cup and have a sip. You must be surprized by the difference from the taste of extracting Gyokuro with hot water.

Very very sweet like candy and completely no astringency. I recommend that you try this with Gyokuro. It’s so cool!

Catechin contained in Japanese green tea has  an antibacterial action and an antiviral effect. There are people who gargle to prevent from the cold by using Japanese green tea after extracting some times in Japan. 

Moreover, how about the bath of Japanese green tea? Put the used tea leaves wrapped in a kitchen paper into the bath. Sterilization and a deodorant action the catechin of green tea are good for your health and beautiful skin. And an unpleasant smell is erased. Plus you can refresh mentally and physically by the smell of green tea having the effect of relax.

Tonight I take green tea bath. Of course I used the tea leaves after extracting three times.

Most of effects for beautiful skin are made by working of vitamin A and C. Vitamin A makes mucous membranes such as the skin, noses, and throats strong, and improves the immunity. Immunity acquired by vitamin A controls breeding of the acne bacterium that causes acne, and it is effective against the troubles of the skins such as a dry skin and psoriasis also.

Vitamin C is known to an element required for the synthesis of collagen which has a cosmetic advantage. Vitamin C helps the generation of collagen, and brings the skin’s suppleness. Moreover, it is effective to change a black melanin into the reduced melanin and to combat freckles , and to decrease cholesterol.

The anti-aging effects are made by working of vitamin E. Because vitamin E has a strong antioxidant effect and the anti-arteriosclerotic effect,  it removes the active oxygen which is the ringleader of all diseases such as aging and the cancer of the skin. As a result, the progression of aging and arteriosclerosis is controlled. Moreover, since it facilitates the flow of blood, it is effective against skin blemishes and poor circulation.

However, because vitamin A and vitamin E are the fat-soluble vitamins, they remain in used tea leaves without dissolving in water.  Let’s take it to eat tea leaves or Matcha.

These vitamin A, C, and E are ‘Antioxidant vitamin’ that has the antioxidant action. The synergy effect is generated by taking these together. Because their antioxidant actions keep working for body  for a long time by preventing to be oxidized themselves each other. Moreover, the catechin that contained Japanese green tea has the antioxidant action 20 times vitamin E, and a similar synergy effect is brought with the vitamins.

Nowadays the vitamins for beauty can be taken by the supplement in modern days. But the supplement has a problem of the health hazard by the excess ingestion.

We recommend taking them from Japanese tea a natural food for beauty!

Since caffeine has a stimulant effect to get the brain to fire more efficiently, caffeine is useful for keeping awake.As naming of caffeine came from coffee,
coffee is  best known as caffeinated drink. But actually  red tea has caffeine much than coffee.

Japanese green tea contains caffeine too. Sencha has about one-half of the caffeine contained in coffee. Gyokuro has about 4 times of the caffeine  contained in coffee! Unlike in coffee, the caffeine in Japanese green tea act gently as the stimulant. Because theanine contained in Japanese green tea inhibit the stimulant action of the caffeine. Therefore, it may be said that Japanese green tea has a optimum stimulant effect.

If you drink a cup of Japanese green tea every morning, you have a lot of energy.

Table.Caffeine content of beverages

Big wave is really coming, but will tea market grow and replace Starbucks? It may take time, but I hope so. But I also love espresso, so I don’t want tea to totally replace espresso

Related Links

• Tea Is New Coffee

It is important for good tea to select soft water.

This point is not familiar to Japanese people because almost every type of Japanese water is very soft water.And, very soft water is suitable for Japanese tea and Japanese cuisine.

The tea using hard water won’t taste so good and lose flavor.

There is plenty of hard water in Europe.And,hard water is suitable for  Europe cuisine.

Hm mm, it is interesting.

Anyway,I recommend soft water !

Water hardness indicates the amount of the calcium and the magnesium in the water.

Very soft: 0-60 ppm
Soft: 60-120 ppm
Hard: 120-180 ppm
Very hard > 180 ppm

Japanese water hardness is　about 20-30 ppm

Below is the list of popular mineral waters of soft water.

Table1.Popular mineral water of soft water

Furthermore,I made the list of more soft waters of the world.

This list is sorted alphabetically by country and brand
I hope this list can help you select the water for preparing Japanese tea.
When you buy the water,please check the label of the water bottle yourself.

Table2.Soft waters of the world

Related Links

• Choosing Water For Tea: A Simple Guide