MATCHA (抹茶,, English pronunciation “mocha”)

MATCHA

(抹茶,, English pronunciation “mocha”)

Chinese rich culture never fails to amaze you. A 5000 years old civilization has so much interesting and mind-blowing facts that the urge for knowing more never comes to end. Today MindGym will share the story of “Matcha” with our readers.

“MATCHA” finely ground powder of specially grown and processed green tea leaves. It got this name from the way this tea is made, “抹” English pronunciation “mo” means to rub and “茶” English pronunciation “cha” means tea, as this tea is made by grinding the leave, so it’s called “mocha”.

The roots of “Matcha” are found in “Tang Dynasty” (CE 618-CE 907) so it’s obvious that this tea has witnessed a lot of history. During the Tang Dynasty the Japanese came to china and take this Matcha tea culture with them due to its numerous medicinal advantages and rich taste. In china, with passage of time people forgot this tea and these days very few people in china know about this tea but Japanese valued it and this matcha tea is still integrated in their culture.

"In Japanese schools the children are served with a cup of Matcha everyday as they believe that drinking this tea can resist the attack of lot of diseases."

The process of making this tea was not that much easy in Tang Dynasty, every action while making the for example holding the whisk or spoon had a proper way of doing it and every action held a specific meaning. if you ever get a chance of visiting a tea house in japan they can still tell you the meaning of every action while making this tea (This is what “meaningful life” means: D). Coming towards the method of making this tea first let me show you guys what will you be needing for making this tea in a professional way are,

Whisk (Chinese name “Zhu Xian”)

bowl (Chinese name “wan”)

spoon (Chinese name “shao zi”)

Grinded fine powder tea (Mocha)

These utensils used to be the same as shown in the picture even in Tang dynasty except the whisk. The whisk in that used to be plan instead of circular in shape.

Follow these steps for making rich tasted mocha

1; Boil water and take it in a jar and before starting making tea add little boiling water to the cups and the bowl to make it warm because making it directly in cold water destroys the flavour to some extent, remove the water from cups and bowl after you feel the utensils are warm.

2; Take out some mocha from the mocha tea box with help of spoon and put it in the bowl.

Pour the boiled water from the jar in the bowl, take the whisk and hold it with three fingers, index finger, thumb and middle finger (If you really want to make it in traditional way) and start stirring the mocha.

3; Important point to remember is that you should stir it quickly and should stir it linearly not in circular motion.

4; Stop stirring when even and small bubbles appear on the surface of tea, the end look of tea should be somewhat like this given in picture.

The more even and smaller the bubbles the more tasteful it will be. This tea is so rich tasted and strong that you can easily get addicted to it if you are real tea lover, moreover if you want to give it more traditional touch you should light an “Incense” and drink the tea in fresh aromatic smell as it was used to be in “Tang Dynasty”.

Hope you enjoyed this Matcha story, we heartily invite people round the globe to “MindGym Tea House” to share with you this splendid tea and a lot of Chinese rich tea culture knowledge.

Written By: M..Sarosh