A quick follow up. I forgot to mention the most important thing. Occasionally I would would notice that the same matcha would taste different. I attributed it to a different Chawan or maybe a different amount of matcha powder or maybe more or less water. I never thought of the foam as having an effect. Now I have another factor to consider.
One other difference I see between omotesenke (the style I teach) and urasenke is the degree of bitterness relative to the sweetness. You identified the obvious differences well (mouth feel, texture, muted flavor, and temperature). Omotesenke usucha doesn’t have time to fall out of solution in a tea ceremony in any significant amount. I suspect you spent several minutes between takes to get that much to drop out of solution. I tend to whisk a bit more than you showed for the “pond” method… about 85-90% coverage. If I do it perfectly, there is a narrow rim of bubbles where the matcha meets the bowl and an island in the middle of the pond (covering most, but not all of the surface). When I have done side-by-side tests of the same tea with the same volume of water (with the urasenke tea made by an urasenke teacher friend of mine and I making the omotesenke usucha), the ratio of sweet (amino acids) to bitter (tannins) is higher in urasenke usucha. The extra foam mutes the bitterness, but the ratio of sweet to bitter is slightly different. I suppose it is expected. The more agitation done to tea leaves, the more the tannin comes out into the solution.
Thanks so much for your input! I've only attended one Omotesenke chaji and o haven't had much of a chance to talk to Omotesenke chajin about their tea, so your knowledge is quite valuable to me. You're right that the time between takes (and the time spent talking between sips) led to more tea falling out of solution. Drank quickly in the right setting I can see how that wouldn't really happen. I have noticed the difference in taste profile and bitterness between the preferred usucha blends for each school, but I'd like try more omote teas too
Interesting as always. Your mention of your school of Tea Ceremony - Ueda Sōko Ryů sent me scrambling to Google. I was not at all familiar with this school. Always interested in learning new things. Keep up the good work. Was that Ryan who peeked in at the end?
We're a pretty small school, but I think we're one of the most unique and forward-oriented (at least my shachū). Ueda Sōko was an active samurai and a student of both Rikyū and later Oribe and is thought to have best preserved Oribe's style. I'm always happy to talk about Ueda-ryū That was Michael at the end :)
@@tezumitea Thank you for the response. I find the subtleties between schools interesting. At my age, I don't see me immersing myself in any one school but I have adapted elements from several different schools into my daily morning ritual. I actually have picked up a lot from a tea master in Japan who represents the Enshu school. I did see there is a very active Ueda Sōko school in NYC. Again thanks for the response.
Ahh, Tyas Sōsen? Kobori Enshū was also a student of Furuta Oribe but his style developed in a rather idiosyncratic way making the Enshū's school's movements quite unique
@@tezumitea Yes Tyas Sōsen. He also has a number of very interesting videos like his 30 minute lesson on folding the Fukusa Enshū style. I must admit that in my hybrid daily tea ritual, I do tend to fold my Fukusa Enshū style.
Hey David, I recently found this channel and am loving all the content relating to matcha! I have a question from one of your initial videos, "My Daily Matcha Routine | How I Make Usucha"; you mentioned you used a sifter can to pre-sift your matcha. I'm a complete noob and lack much experience with preparing matcha but I read online that pre-sifting matcha, especially ones of higher quality, may not be recommended as it speeds up the oxidation. What are your thoughts on this? I've been sifting every time I make a cup of matcha, so your insight might save me a lot of time and convenience in the future. Thanks in advance!
If you're making matcha every day, pre-sifting a few bowls worth of tea won't have a noticeable impact on oxidation, so i think it's definitely worth it for the convenience
@@tezumitea Thanks for the quick reply! You're probably right, I'm just worrying about borderline cases. I'll check out buying the black sifter can from Tezumi over the holidays! Thanks again, David!
Good video. I prefer a lot of foam regardless of the quality of the matcha. However, I often alter the foam to liquid ratio, if I will drink more than one cup a day - enjoying diversity. Very rarely that I do the pond method though.
If you are presifting matcha, does this mean you can presift it for lets say a higher volume cafe too? I have always seen the baristas sift it per order but I imagine it would be faster if that step was removed
Yes! We encourage the cafes we work with to presift in order to make drinks quicker. Our largest sifter canister can sift about 80g at a time and store more, which helps a lot during a busy rush. Of course, you should only sift what you will use and anything that isn't used will have to be resifted eventually
This is a relatively common practice, but we don't generally suggest this as it would lead to the tea oxidising quicker and declining in quality. If it's already a cheaper/lower quality matcha then it's less noticeable, but oxidation is generally bad for matcha
@@tezumitea Agreed. Additionally, the longer the matcha (or any tea for that matter) is in contact with water, the more tanins are extracted into the liquid, thus making the drink more bitter over time.
Do the different schools have different philosophical reasons or otherwise for how much foam they use? From the Hyoge Mono anime, it seemed like everyone back in the day just wanted to differentiate themselves and be 'different' just because. Also would like a closer look at what school uses what type of chasen and chawan style and other comparisons! You are my gateway to the intricacies of matcha!
@@jiahaotan696 Yes, different schools use different chasen. The important differences (other than white/smoked material) is in the number of tines and the shape of the overall chasen. For example, urasenke uses more tines than omotesenke. In omotesenke, we use even fewer tines when making thick tea as opposed to thin tea.
Adding on the the other reply, the strict dōgu differences and deliniations between schools occurred a few generations after the events of Hyōge Mono, during the early Edo period. The San-senke are descended from the three sons of Rikyū's adopted grandson, Sōtan. During this time, the rigid structure of the Tokugawa Bakufu had an effect on chanoyu culture, so we saw less of the free creativity of Rikyū and Oribe’s era. The modern Iemoto system of schools appeared around this time too. So before this, chanoyu was much more decentralised, with a students taking their masters' teachings and then adapting them to their own individual taste. With the iemoto system and the rise of schools, the aesthetic principles, tastes, and styles became centralised, codified, and fixed. The iemoto sets the dōgu preference for each school, usually with the founder's taste as precedence. E.g. you'll see more raku chawan used by the san-senke, influenced by Rikyū and his wabicha, but also more painted Kyō-yaki chawan, influenced by iemoto in the mid-late edo. Conversely in samurai descended schools, such as Enshū and Ueda Sōko, you'll see more Korean-style and Oribe chawan
@@tezumitea AWESOME! That is exactly what I wanted to know. Thank you for educating us about the intricacies of matcha and I think this fills in a very important gap in the world of Western-facing businesses who generally just go 'here buy some nuclear green umami caffeine bomb powder pls and watch how I make matcha lattes and other mixed drinks and you can do it too as long as you buy my product!'
i love how your videos are so formal yet you always find a way to put something funny in there lol.
A quick follow up. I forgot to mention the most important thing. Occasionally I would would notice that the same matcha would taste different. I attributed it to a different Chawan or maybe a different amount of matcha powder or maybe more or less water. I never thought of the foam as having an effect. Now I have another factor to consider.
Great experiment thanks!
I tend to use the pond method, but that's because I can't make my hand move fast enough. 😛
Thank you for making these videos, they’re great, domo arigato.
Love your content, thanks for the lessons
One other difference I see between omotesenke (the style I teach) and urasenke is the degree of bitterness relative to the sweetness. You identified the obvious differences well (mouth feel, texture, muted flavor, and temperature). Omotesenke usucha doesn’t have time to fall out of solution in a tea ceremony in any significant amount. I suspect you spent several minutes between takes to get that much to drop out of solution. I tend to whisk a bit more than you showed for the “pond” method… about 85-90% coverage. If I do it perfectly, there is a narrow rim of bubbles where the matcha meets the bowl and an island in the middle of the pond (covering most, but not all of the surface).
When I have done side-by-side tests of the same tea with the same volume of water (with the urasenke tea made by an urasenke teacher friend of mine and I making the omotesenke usucha), the ratio of sweet (amino acids) to bitter (tannins) is higher in urasenke usucha. The extra foam mutes the bitterness, but the ratio of sweet to bitter is slightly different. I suppose it is expected. The more agitation done to tea leaves, the more the tannin comes out into the solution.
Thanks so much for your input! I've only attended one Omotesenke chaji and o haven't had much of a chance to talk to Omotesenke chajin about their tea, so your knowledge is quite valuable to me.
You're right that the time between takes (and the time spent talking between sips) led to more tea falling out of solution. Drank quickly in the right setting I can see how that wouldn't really happen.
I have noticed the difference in taste profile and bitterness between the preferred usucha blends for each school, but I'd like try more omote teas too
I love the pokemon plush in the background lol
Interesting as always. Your mention of your school of Tea Ceremony - Ueda Sōko Ryů sent me scrambling to Google. I was not at all familiar with this school. Always interested in learning new things. Keep up the good work. Was that Ryan who peeked in at the end?
We're a pretty small school, but I think we're one of the most unique and forward-oriented (at least my shachū). Ueda Sōko was an active samurai and a student of both Rikyū and later Oribe and is thought to have best preserved Oribe's style. I'm always happy to talk about Ueda-ryū
That was Michael at the end :)
@@tezumitea Thank you for the response. I find the subtleties between schools interesting. At my age, I don't see me immersing myself in any one school but I have adapted elements from several different schools into my daily morning ritual. I actually have picked up a lot from a tea master in Japan who represents the Enshu school. I did see there is a very active Ueda Sōko school in NYC. Again thanks for the response.
Ahh, Tyas Sōsen? Kobori Enshū was also a student of Furuta Oribe but his style developed in a rather idiosyncratic way making the Enshū's school's movements quite unique
@@tezumitea Yes Tyas Sōsen. He also has a number of very interesting videos like his 30 minute lesson on folding the Fukusa Enshū style. I must admit that in my hybrid daily tea ritual, I do tend to fold my Fukusa Enshū style.
Enshū has probably the most unique and complicated fukusa fold too!
So ... to sum it up, the better quality tea you have the less you need to beat the foam out of it.
Hey David, I recently found this channel and am loving all the content relating to matcha!
I have a question from one of your initial videos, "My Daily Matcha Routine | How I Make Usucha"; you mentioned you used a sifter can to pre-sift your matcha. I'm a complete noob and lack much experience with preparing matcha but I read online that pre-sifting matcha, especially ones of higher quality, may not be recommended as it speeds up the oxidation.
What are your thoughts on this? I've been sifting every time I make a cup of matcha, so your insight might save me a lot of time and convenience in the future. Thanks in advance!
If you're making matcha every day, pre-sifting a few bowls worth of tea won't have a noticeable impact on oxidation, so i think it's definitely worth it for the convenience
@@tezumitea Thanks for the quick reply! You're probably right, I'm just worrying about borderline cases. I'll check out buying the black sifter can from Tezumi over the holidays!
Thanks again, David!
Good video. I prefer a lot of foam regardless of the quality of the matcha. However, I often alter the foam to liquid ratio, if I will drink more than one cup a day - enjoying diversity. Very rarely that I do the pond method though.
If you are presifting matcha, does this mean you can presift it for lets say a higher volume cafe too? I have always seen the baristas sift it per order but I imagine it would be faster if that step was removed
Yes! We encourage the cafes we work with to presift in order to make drinks quicker. Our largest sifter canister can sift about 80g at a time and store more, which helps a lot during a busy rush. Of course, you should only sift what you will use and anything that isn't used will have to be resifted eventually
Emilee Bryant Posted a video about Matcha, where she actually recommended that a café could pre-whisk Matcha to make up a batch for use in lattes!
This is a relatively common practice, but we don't generally suggest this as it would lead to the tea oxidising quicker and declining in quality. If it's already a cheaper/lower quality matcha then it's less noticeable, but oxidation is generally bad for matcha
@@tezumitea Thanks for the reply! Love the videos and expert information!
@@tezumitea Agreed. Additionally, the longer the matcha (or any tea for that matter) is in contact with water, the more tanins are extracted into the liquid, thus making the drink more bitter over time.
Obligatory like before watching
Do the different schools have different philosophical reasons or otherwise for how much foam they use? From the Hyoge Mono anime, it seemed like everyone back in the day just wanted to differentiate themselves and be 'different' just because.
Also would like a closer look at what school uses what type of chasen and chawan style and other comparisons!
You are my gateway to the intricacies of matcha!
@@jiahaotan696 Yes, different schools use different chasen. The important differences (other than white/smoked material) is in the number of tines and the shape of the overall chasen. For example, urasenke uses more tines than omotesenke. In omotesenke, we use even fewer tines when making thick tea as opposed to thin tea.
Adding on the the other reply, the strict dōgu differences and deliniations between schools occurred a few generations after the events of Hyōge Mono, during the early Edo period. The San-senke are descended from the three sons of Rikyū's adopted grandson, Sōtan. During this time, the rigid structure of the Tokugawa Bakufu had an effect on chanoyu culture, so we saw less of the free creativity of Rikyū and Oribe’s era. The modern Iemoto system of schools appeared around this time too. So before this, chanoyu was much more decentralised, with a students taking their masters' teachings and then adapting them to their own individual taste. With the iemoto system and the rise of schools, the aesthetic principles, tastes, and styles became centralised, codified, and fixed. The iemoto sets the dōgu preference for each school, usually with the founder's taste as precedence. E.g. you'll see more raku chawan used by the san-senke, influenced by Rikyū and his wabicha, but also more painted Kyō-yaki chawan, influenced by iemoto in the mid-late edo. Conversely in samurai descended schools, such as Enshū and Ueda Sōko, you'll see more Korean-style and Oribe chawan
@@tezumitea AWESOME! That is exactly what I wanted to know. Thank you for educating us about the intricacies of matcha and I think this fills in a very important gap in the world of Western-facing businesses who generally just go 'here buy some nuclear green umami caffeine bomb powder pls and watch how I make matcha lattes and other mixed drinks and you can do it too as long as you buy my product!'