Enjoy pairing tea and specific dishes
The abundant array of Japanese tea varieties enables the pairing of tea with compatible cooked dishes. The number of matching dishes is further expanded by working on the brewing method. An unexpected compatibility has been discovered between Western cooking and cold-brewed green tea, as a replacement for alcoholic beverages during meals, and as an increasingly popular healthy soft drink.
Japanese cuisine and Japanese green tea
When a Japanese dish harmonizes fish and vegetables, cooks tend to minimize heat and seasonings to bring out the most flavor from within the ingredients themselves. For this reason, depending on the dish, the food can be robustly flavored and has with long-lasting taste. Green tea has strong cleansing effects, so it can be taken after meals to quickly refresh the palate from even the strong aftertastes of sushi and fish dishes. Each course of multiple-course meals can also be enjoyed with a refreshed palate.
With sushi, now the object of a worldwide boom, Konacha is enjoyed as an added “powdered tea.” Among Japan’s teas, this is a rather special tea product. It has been used for centuries as a strong and effective foil to fishy smells. Also, as with Matcha taken in a tea ceremony following a traditional Japanese meal, tasting a high quality tea with strong umami after a meal is one way to enjoy it. Various kinds of teas can be chosen to suit the dish and the situation, and this pleasure is one of Japanese tea’s most important qualities.
Examples of matching with Japanese dishes
※ All Japanese cooking, from ordinary daily dishes to the most sophisticated multi-course meals of Kaiseki-ryori
※ Gyokuro has a strong tendency to be savored just for the taste of the tea itself, but it can also be enjoyed after meals and with tea cakes.
※ Matcha has a strong tendency to be savored just for the taste of the tea itself, but it can also be enjoyed after meals and with tea cakes.
※ Its strong cleansing effects make it well liked as a chaser after oily dishes such as tempera.
※ All Japanese cuisine, mainly ordinary daily dishes
※ Pairing a strong cleansing agent with an aromatic, flavorful dish
Western cuisine and Japanese green tea
Japanese tea is now gaining attention as an alternative to the alcoholic beverages and mineral water that typically accompany Western meals. Among these teas, cold-brewed high-quality Sencha with aromatic qualities can offer a previously unknown taste experience with a predominant umami and subdued bitterness and astringency. Sencha’s refreshing and reinvigorating qualities are coupled with its distinctive aroma. Recently, chefs and other experts have recognized the harmony of green tea pairings with dishes such as fish and vegetables that are normally accompanied by white wine. The tables of restaurants savvy to Japanese teas are set today with cold-brewed, high-quality Sencha and Gyokuro green tea products–the teas with especially noticeable umami.
Cold-brewed Sencha,“Okuhikari”
Examples of matching with Western dishes
※Cold-brewed Sencha is well balanced between refreshing and umami sensations. It mates well with the widest variety of dishes.
Recommended botanical varieties of teas: “Okuhikari, Koshun, Yamakai, Hujikaori, Sakurakaori”
※ Suitable following an umami-rich Western dish.
※ Matcha’s taste, a balance of bitter and sweet, is a perfect match with sweet confections.
※ The flavor compound melanoidin that is formed when caramel is made pairs up nicely with the flavor component known as pyrazin that is produced when the tea is roasted.
