Brew
Recipes
What to do with tea besides putting it in a pot: chill it, toast it, cook with it, eat it. None of it calls for special equipment — a frying pan and a saucepan cover everything. It also takes care of leaf you have too much of, and leaf you have already brewed.
Cold-brewed sencha
about 4 hr1 L (4–5 cups)
Extraction in cold water, no kettle involved. Almost no astringency comes out, so sweetness and savoriness lead. Worth keeping a jug in the fridge through summer.
You need
- 10 g sencha leaf (about 2 tablespoons)
- 1 L cold water
- A 1 L jug, or a bottle with a built-in strainer
Method
- Put the leaf and the water in the jug. A filter bag works; so does loose leaf you strain out later.
- Refrigerate for 3–6 hours. Longer makes it stronger without making it astringent.
- Take the leaf out, or strain it. Left in, it will turn harsh before you finish the jug.
- Shake before pouring — the strength settles to the bottom.
Notes — The compounds behind astringency dissolve poorly at low temperature, which is why long steeping stays smooth. Caffeine is reduced, not removed. Drink it the same day and always remove the leaf. Standard-steamed tea gives a clearer jug than deep-steamed.
Ice-brewed gyokuro
about 40 min30–40 mL (one small cup)
Ice sits on the leaf and brews it with nothing but meltwater. You get a few tens of millilitres, and it tastes like the savoriness extracted on its own.
You need
- 3–4 g gyokuro or kabusecha leaf
- 3–4 ice cubes
- A shallow pot — a hōhin or a small kyusu
Method
- Put the leaf in the pot and level it out.
- Set the ice on top of the leaf. No hot water at all.
- Leave it 30–40 minutes while the ice melts into the leaf.
- Pour off what has collected. It is a mouthful, not a cup.
Notes — This is the cold-brew principle taken to its extreme: the cooler and slower the extraction, the more the savoury compounds dominate. Expensive per sip, but the leaf is not spent — brew it normally for a second infusion. High-grade kabusecha does the same trick.
Homemade hojicha
about 10 min2–3 cups
Sencha or bancha toasted in a dry pan becomes hojicha. It is the most reliable use for tea whose aroma has faded.
You need
- 2 tablespoons of sencha, bancha or kukicha
- A frying pan, dry — or a horoku roasting pot
Method
- Heat the pan over medium and add the leaf. No oil.
- Keep it moving with a wooden spatula for 3–5 minutes. Don't push the heat until it smokes.
- When the leaf has gone reddish-brown and the toasty smell comes up, take it off.
- Spread it out on a plate or tray straight away. Left in the pan, residual heat will scorch it.
- Only seal it in a container once completely cool — warm leaf will sweat and go damp.
Notes — Scorched leaf turns bitter, so judge by smell rather than color. Brew it with water straight off the boil for about 30 seconds. Kukicha toasts to a notably sweet aroma. Damp leaf can be rescued this way, though the aroma went with the moisture and will not fully return.
Matcha latte
about 5 minOne cup (about 200 mL)
Whether you paste the matcha with a little hot water first decides how it comes out. Tipped straight into milk, it stays lumpy.
You need
- 2 g matcha (two chashaku scoops)
- 30 mL water at 70–80°C / 158–176°F
- 150 mL milk
- Sugar or honey to taste
- A sieve
Method
- Sift the matcha into the cup. Sifting is what keeps the lumps out.
- Add just 30 mL of water at 70–80°C (158–176°F) and work it into a smooth paste with a whisk.
- Pour in warmed milk and stir. For iced, use cold milk and ice.
- Sweeten last. Adjusting sugar is more forgiving than adjusting the powder.
Notes — Culinary grade is the right choice here — it is built to stand up to milk and sugar. A fine drinking grade is not needed: its delicate aroma tends to disappear under the milk.
Chagayu — tea rice porridge
about 30 minServes two
Rice simmered in tea rather than water. An everyday dish around Nara, where the thin astringency of bancha or hojicha does the work that salt usually would.
You need
- 90 g (½ gō) rice
- 1 L water
- 10 g hojicha or bancha, in a filter bag
- A pinch of salt
Method
- Bring the water and the tea bag to a boil, simmer about three minutes, then lift the bag out.
- Add the washed rice and cook over a brisk medium heat, uncovered.
- Give it 15–20 minutes, until the rice is as soft as you like. Stir only now and then — frequent stirring makes it gluey, and chagayu is meant to be thin.
- Season with salt and take it off the heat. Serve at once; standing, the rice drinks the liquid and turns heavy.
Notes — Chagayu is meant to be thin and loose, never thickened — hence no lid and minimal stirring. The astringency of the tea gives an outline to rice that has no fat in it. Umeboshi and pickles are the usual companions. Freshly toasted homemade hojicha makes it noticeably more aromatic.
Simmered spent tea leaves
about 15 min2–3 small servings
Rather than binning the leaf, eat it. Spent gyokuro and high-grade sencha are tender enough to serve as they are.
You need
- One brewing's spent leaf from gyokuro, kabusecha or good sencha
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp mirin
- 1 tbsp sake
- 2 tbsp chirimen-jako, small dried fish (optional)
- Toasted sesame seeds
Method
- Squeeze the leaf gently to shed the water. Don't wring it.
- Bring the soy sauce, mirin and sake to a boil in a small pan.
- Add the leaf and the jako, and stir over medium heat until the liquid is gone — about five minutes.
- Off the heat, scatter sesame over it. Keeps refrigerated two or three days.
Notes — Beta-carotene and vitamin E in tea are fat-soluble, so they never make it into the cup — they stay in the leaf. That is the logic of eating it. It only works with tender shade-grown leaf, though; spent bancha and hojicha are too tough.
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