I had been wanting to record a podcast about Japanese tea cultivars for a long time.

My chance finally came after speaking with Noli Ergas from Sugimoto Tea.

Why should we care about tea cultivars? When did cultivar use start in Japan? How do the prices of different cultivars compare?

Noli answers these questions and more in this podcast episode.

In this episode I interviewed Daisuke Horiguchi and Kyle Ketner of Wakoen.

I was surprised by how much information they had to share.

We talk about the history of the company, the types of teas that they sell, their teanery (like a winery but for tea), a special machine to repel pests in a natural way, and the different tea cultivars that they have, among other things.

They were kind enough to give me samples for future reviews.

I will start by reviewing their arabikicha, a high grade tea powder.

Wakoen will start selling tea outside Japan through their brand new website, and also inside the US through Amazon.

In this episode I interview Joelle and Aldo Bloise from Ikkyu.

Ikkyu is an online store that sells Japanese tea from Kyushu, one of the main islands of Japan.

It was fun to speak with Joelle and Aldo, they are a very friendly couple.

We talk about their tea store, the teas of Kyushu, the special kaoru cups, and white leaf tea, among other things.

I haven’t tasted their teas yet, but I will do so in the near future.

In this episode I interview Tyas Sōsen of The Tea Crane. He’s been on this podcast several times before.

We talk about his book: The Story of Japanese Tea.

The information offered by Tyas is useful whether you’ve read the book or not.

For example we talk about what natural tea is, oxidized Japanese teas, how the taste of the original Japanese tea has changed, and more.

In this episode, Elyse Petersen of Tealet shares her experience with organizing tea events.

She recently wrote a related article on T Ching.

Tea events are the key to spreading the word about specialty tea.

It’s an important marketing tool. I’ve slowly opened up my local market thanks in large part to the tea tastings that I do.

I reviewed The Book of Japanese Tea some time ago. It’s my favorite book about Japanese tea so far.

In this podcast episode Oscar Brekell tells us about how this bilingual book came to be, how it was received by Japanese and non Japanese, and what he personally finds unique about Japanese tea, among other topics.

If you haven’t read this book yet, you’ll probably want to after hearing this podcast. I give instructions on how to purchase it through Amazon Japan, both the physical and the Kindle version.

We also agreed to record a podcast in the future about the recent trend of single cultivar Japanese teas.

I’ve reviewed teas from DoMatcha before, they have all been very good.

But I hadn’t recorded a podcast episode about this company until now.

In this episode I interview John Harrison, the CEO of DoMatcha.

He tells the story of the founding of the company, how they first began to market matcha in North America at a time when matcha was pretty much unknown, and what the future might hold for matcha, among other things.

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I had heard about Mizuba Tea many times before, but I hadn’t talked with its founder Lauren Danson until now.

Mizuba Tea specializes in matcha. Naturally, we talk a lot about matcha in this episode.

Among the topics covered are the importance of blending, age of the tea plants, and aging of the tea leaves.

I’ll be reviewing a matcha from Mizuba Tea soon. I’m very eager to try it

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Tyas Sōsen from The Tea Crane has been working on a new tea project.

In this podcast we talk about his Kickstarter campaign, organic and natural teas in Japan, how to prepare them, and about teas other than the usual green teas that are being made in Japan.

Tyas plans to write a book on the subject, and in the future he will open a tea bar in Kyoto.

I hope to one day meet him again and drink his new teas.

In this episode I talk with Robert Wemischner, the author of Cooking with Tea, about pairing green tea with cheese.

Robert is very knowledgeable about tea pairings, I attended one of his tea and cheese pairing sessions at the World Tea Expo some years ago.

This detailed information can’t be found elsewhere in the internet (I’ve tried that already). Thank you Robert

Besides tea and cheese, he also talks about cooking with tea, and pairing tea and chocolate.

Robert Wemischner

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