It’s Cherry Blossom Time in Japan

To celebrate Mother Nature’s spectacular once-a-year cherry blossom ( sakura ) season we welcome the return of our Japanese Sencha Sakura tea. This sweetly perfumed tea is a delicious and satisfying blend of high-quality Japanese Sencha from Shizuoka Prefecture combined with tiny pink dried sakura blossoms.

In step with the fleeting nature of cherry blossoms, our Sencha Sakura tea cheers the transition from one year’s season to the next. Blended only once each year from carefully reserved tea leaves and dried sakura blossoms collected during the previous year’s harvest, the subtle fragrance of these tiny pink cherry blossoms yields a fragrant and alluring cup that is a perfect harbinger of the new season: fresh, vibrant and charmingly sweet.

Springtime in your teacup, sakura-style! Click here to view our Sencha Sakura. http://www.teatrekker.com/shop/sencha-sakura/

Cherry blossoms ( sakura ) are beloved in Japan, and hanami ( flower viewing ) pays homage to the Japanese tradition of appreciating the delicate beauty of flowers. During sakura season families and friends – and people of all ages – venture outdoors to celebrate the return of spring and more specifically, behold the magnificent but fleeting show of cherry blossoms that occurs across many regions in Japan. Hanami has held an annual place of importance for Japanese people since the 8th century in Japan.

Over the course of one month -from late March to May- cherry trees blossom into magnificent displays of pastel color ranging from dark pink to pale, delicate pink, to white-white, and ivory-toned white. Parks and walkways along river banks are especially lovely this time of year. Groups of cherry blossom ‘peepers’ travel in groups from one site to another, knotching as many viewings under their belts as possible.

We sincerely pray that this seasonal time of beauty and natural wonder will help to raise the national spirit in Japan and begin the healing from the devastating events brought on by the recent earthquake and tsunami. The situation in Japan is almost too much to contemplate, but we like to think that just as the delicate sakura blossoms return each spring, so too will the Japanese people will re-emerge from this challenge, strong, determined and with spirit intact.

Sakura season begins in March in southern Japan. The best viewing regions and locations are charted and reported by the media as the spring season progresses into northern Japan.

Below is a chart of approximate bloom time which is from the website http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2011.html. Regions in southern and central Japan that have begun to report sightings of cherry blossoms are listed with a pink blossom and marked with the seasonal starting date.

Location	Opening	Estimated Best Viewing
Tokyo	Opened March 28	April 5 to 13
Kyoto	Opened March 28	April 6 to 14
Kagoshima	Opened March 23	April 1 to 11
Kumamoto	Opened March 21	March 30 to April 10
Fukuoka	Opened March 22	April 2 to 11
Hiroshima	Opened April 1	April 6 to 13
Nara	Opened March 31	April 7 to 14
Osaka	Opened March 31	April 6 to 14
Nagoya	Opened March 27	April 6 to 13
Yokohama	Opened March 30	April 7 to 14
Kanazawa	Opened April 7	April 11 to 19
Matsumoto	April 11	April 16 to 23
Sendai	April 13	April 17 to 24
Kakunodate	April 27	May 2 to 9
Hirosaki	April 25	April 29 to May 6
Hakodate	April 29	May 3 to 10
Sapporo	May 3	May 6 to 13

Sencha Sakura – natural Cherry Blossom Green Tea

Sakura , as they are known in Japan, or cherry blossoms, as they are affectionately called here, are the first harbinger of spring. Each year, legions of  ‘bloom watchers’ eagerly travel to various locations in Japan in the hopes of arriving at just the right time to enjoy a spectacular show of delicate pink and white colors and inhale the soft, subtle fragrance during the annual Cherry Blossom Festival.

In North America, Washington DC, Philadelphia and Vancouver in British Columbia celebrate the flowering of their cherry trees, too, with annual Cherry Blossom Festivals. In 1912 Japan gave our nation’s capital a gift of 3,020 cherry trees, and another 3,800 trees in 1965. These graceful trees signal Washington’s right of spring with an explosion of white and pink color which is avidly witnessed by thousands of visitors from across the nation and around the world.  Each year the peak season of bloom in Washington DC varies with the weather – from mid-March to early April is the window of time.

The very idea of thousands of cherry trees all in blossom all the same time is, for me, the quintessence of spring fever.

To celebrate Mother Nature’s spectacular show, we are introducing our Sencha Sakura tea. This sweetly perfumed tea is a delicious and satisfying blend of green tea – Japanese Sencha - from Shizuoka Prefecture in Japan and tiny pink Sakura blossoms. The subtle fragrance of these tiny pink cherry blossoms makes a fragrant and alluring cup that is a perfect harbinger of the fresh new season.

Our Sencha Sakura tea is, like the cherry blossoms themselves, available for a fleeting time only once a year. Be sure to order now – Sencha Sakura is a lovely gift to tuck inside of an Easter basket for your favorite tea drinker !

 

A Win in the Bronze Category for Me

YOKOSO JAPAN VISIT 2010 FOLLOW YOUR IMAGINATION

No, I am not talking about an OLYMPIC win, but a win in the recent Japan National Tourism Organization ”Visit Japan” Contest

Entires were solicited in two categories: original composition and photography. In each category the prizes were:

3 Grand Prizes : airfare to Japan
4 Gold Prizes:hotel accommodations or day tours in Japan
5 Silver Prizes: discount travel voucher on air travel to Japan
10 Bronze Prizes: Visit Japan goodie bag with maps, regional Japan guides, a slick pair of chopsticks, etc.

I entered a photograph of a stunning 400 year-old Oribe tea bowl and supplied the required 201 character caption for the image.

This is the photograph and the caption that I entered.

This 400-year old Oribe tea bowl, still in the service of a Japanese tea master, is a powerful cultural image. It ’s confident bearing and full-presence fuels my desire to visit Japan to study traditional ceramics styles, shapes and technique.

I was told that over 6,000 people entered the contest. I am thrilled that my image of this oversized, slipper-shaped chawan owned by Master Sen So’Oku ( Sen Masayoshi ) Zuiensai, 15th Generation Heir to the Mushakoji-Senke School of Tea resonated so well with the judges.

Click here to visit the Japan National Tourism Organization webiste: http://www.japantravelinfo.com/2010

Arigato Gozaimasu

Spring 2008 Tea from China & Japan

  

After much anticipation, we are thrilled to say that our air shipments of freshly plucked, early spring 2008 green teas have arrived from China and Japan.

In Asia, the spring green tea harvet kicks off the beginning of a new season of tea production. These teas possess sweet, mouth-filling flavors that are influenced by the specific terroir ( the essence of the soil, rocks, rains, late spring snow, clouds & mist, etc. ) of the place where they grow.

In China, spring green teas from high mountain elevations such as these teas are only plucked for a short season of about 6 weeks. During this time the developing leaf on the tea bushes is small and tender. But soon it will grow larger and by June will be classified as summer tea.

In Japan, the first tea of the new season is called Shincha. The tiny leaves and buds of Shincha are only plucked for a short 10-or so day period before they grow too large to be so classified. Shincha is intensely aromatic and vegetal, and in a class by itself. Each spring, Japanese tea lovers eagerly await the arrival of Shincha in the tea shops throughout Japan. It is a time for celebrating the new tea season and for enjoying the flavor of the first tea of the new year.

Those of us living in the West do not often have the chance to experience new tea this fresh. So this is a wonderful opportunity for you to become familiar with such splendid teas. We have a limited quantity of these teas – you won’t want to miss out.

• Sichuan, China

Mending Mt. Clouds & Mist

Mengding Mt. Sweet Dew

Mt. Emei Bamboo Tip

• Zhejiang, Chjina

Bamboo Sea Tea

• Shizuoka, Japan

Hashiri Shincha

Please vist our website - http://www.cooksshophere.com/products/tea/green/2008_swsp_grn_tea.htm – to read more about each of these extraordindary teas and to place your order.

Note: we have been told by our sources in China that these teas from Sichuan province were in transit before the devastating earthquake occured in that region of China. Since then, the problems caused by broken, impassible roads will mean that transportation of goods out of Sichuan will be cut to a trickle. Further supplies of tea will be delayed for perhaps as long as several months. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of this region of Sichuan whose lives have been so devastated.