It's All About Tea

Chashitsu is the Japanese term for a tea room. It is a little hut, resembling a house, where Japanese tea ceremonies (chanoyu) would take place. Following tradition, matcha green tea is always served in the chashitsu, alongside with some simple sweets prepared by the tea master. It is said that chashitsu started appearing during the Sengoku period (mid-15th century to early 17th century). Before then, tea was commonly enjoyed in separate rooms and not in individual tea huts. (Read more)

As much as we love our daily gong fu tea, the summer days are only getting hotter. We know sometimes as much as you’d like to enjoy a quiet moment with your tea pet, brewing up pot after pot of delicious loose leaf tea, the heat can make the practice unbearable. At times like this, we switch to our favorite summer-time tea brewing method — cold brewed tea! (Read more)

Once drinking Japanese green tea was reserved only for the Emperors, noblemen, and samurai. Nowadays, Japanese green tea is enjoyed in households all throughout Japan. The kyusu is used all through Japan for the convenience of brewing Japanese green teas like sencha, genmaicha, and gyokuro. It is an iconic part of modern Japanese tea drinking culture. (Read more)

Many tea drinkers around the world might be under the impression that teapots were invented practically the same day the tea leaf was first brewed! It’s an interesting image, indeed, but not an accurate one. The teapot itself had to go through some evolution in times past. (Read more) 

The Chinese Tea Ceremony. Gong Fu Cha. In the West, we have all developed certain connotations behind these phrases, and for most of all, the image we get when we hear Chinese tea ceremony is the same. A gaiwan or yixing teapot filled to the brim with tea leaves, some small teacups, a tea table with some tea utensils, and a tea pet. Indeed, the vast majority of us will get the same image in our minds when we hear Gong Fu Cha. The Chinese tea ceremony is almost comparable to Chinese food in the US. Is American Chinese food the same food you will find being served in China? No. It is the same with the Chinese tea ceremony. Not everyone in China practices what we nowadays refer to by this term. Furthermore, modern day Gong Fu Cha is not purely Chinese. (Read more)