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Big heat, iced tea Bancha

It's very hot here in Japan. It is hot during the day, and finally it almost as hot at night. And above all it is wet, very wet. It's stifling, and my only ally is the air conditioning. Without it impossible to sleep, but it is also the source of large burst some summer ...... so far this year, knock on wood!

That said, who said summer heat also said iced tea. The Japanese tea, ice is great. In Japan, in summer, people are very fond of Mugi-cha 麦 茶. In Japanese, the word "cha" means 茶 course tea, but also an infusion of general. And indeed, the Mugi-cha is not tea is an infusion prepared with wheat. Boiled beans for some time, then, for the summer and cooled in the refrigerator with ice. There are also course of popular products to be directly prepared with cold water.

But coming back to tea, be sure that there are also products in sachets to be prepared with cold water, usually in about 1 liter. It leaves a few hours in the fridge and it's ready! Sencha , genmai -cha, cha Hoji short, the whole range. Better, certainly, that the products in bottles, it's still not Folichon.

Here, the entire panoply of "Tea for Summer"

Fortunately, there are more advanced products. All shops offer their tea in summer, their real leaf tea in bulk, to be deliciously prepared with cold water (mizu dashi 水 出し). The cheap supermarket products contain general matcha, it is chic, but it serves mainly to give a beautiful color and more flavor to a sencha poor. Specialty shops offer them a house blend, with good teas, sencha I say entry level in the "superior". To brewed in cold water, without taking up too much time, Fuka-mushi sencha is an appropriate choice. Thus, in Maruyama-in was a blend of a Sencha Fuka-mushi plain of Shizuoka (cultivar classic yabukita), something of punchy, with a Fuka-mushi Kagoshima, a cultivar Asatsuyu , ie a sweet tea, which gives a wonderful liqueur, to taste very personal. I must say it is rather successful, there's taste, it's a tea but with little astringency, sweet but not too much, because by infusing cold water infuse very little tannins and a sweet tea too, would lose the side asked a refreshing iced tea. Also, the characteristics of the variety asatsuyu out well.

In fact, even brewed hot, such products are very good.

Yes, let's be clear, it is simply marketing campaign to sell tea in the summer (and believe me, it's not easy). Indeed, any tea (almost) can be prepared with cold water. Some are more or less good, and especially require more or less time. But with Sencha Fuka-mushi , 4-5 minutes is enough, using a little more leaves for a hot brew.

However, when it comes to preparing an iced tea, I can not help for me to recommend, not the infusion in cold water, but rather a preparation on the rocks " with ice. First, it is much faster. And especially, as infused with hot water, we get a balanced liqueur flavor, which takes advantage of all the amino acids as mild astringent tannins (the latter n'infusent not much with cold water).

Just prepare sencha you would like to eat hot, but with a little more leaves and brewing time a little longer, then to pay a large amount of ice. Just the view of the beautiful green of the liquor in which the floating ice is very transparent refreshing.

I made here on the rocks "a kabuse of Yame-cha. Very sweet but not too (mmm, say limit, I had to be infused with water a little warmer and a little shorter, the color would have won too), cooling liquor minimizes perfume "peaty" bothers me on many Yame.

Finally, when we want an iced tea, I think that we should not hesitate to use a very good tea, thinking that "this mess". Sounds silly, but I still say it with quality teas we get a very good iced tea. If well prepared, either on the rocks "or " mizudashi "This is really not a waste ......... I say this, but at home I did not prepare ..... but not because I think it's wasted, just because I prefer when even hot.