Mellow Monk's Green Tea Blog

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noreply@blogger.com (Mellow Monk) — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 23:17:00 +0000

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Sakura flower

noreply@blogger.com (Mellow Monk) — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 21:14:00 +0000

—Mellow Monk

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Optimism and self-control

noreply@blogger.com (Mellow Monk) — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 23:07:00 +0000

Optimism — maintaining a positive view of the future — can not only improve your mood but also your health by boosting your immune system.

Also associated with positivity in life is self-control, which all of us can find in short supply sometimes. But studies are finding that you can get an immediate boost in self-control through self-affirmation — simply thinking about your own positive traits.

Whenever I drink green tea, I reflect on how it connects me to the wonderful place where it is grown. And that fills me with positivity — and optimism and good health.

—Mellow Monk

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Japanese art at Scholten

noreply@blogger.com (Mellow Monk) — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 22:52:00 +0000

Scholten Japanese Art is a gallery offering art both old and modern, both two- and three-dimensional, from prints to netsuke.

Scottish artist Paul Binnie's Asa ni Namida (Morning Tears).

—Mellow Monk

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Baachan and her cat

noreply@blogger.com (Mellow Monk) — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 23:19:00 +0000

Miyoko Ihara's photos of Fukumaru the cat frolicking with Ms. Ihara's grandmother, Misao, have been published as a collection.

—Mellow Monk

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Where the stardust twinkles online

noreply@blogger.com (Mellow Monk) — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 22:49:00 +0000

Kira kira means "twinkle" in Japanese, as stardust does, and KiraKira Waypoints is your own personal canvas where colorful stardust dances as you direct it — perfect for a green tea break.

You drag the small circles to redirect the flow of stardust.

—Mellow Monk

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Yaezakura

noreply@blogger.com (Mellow Monk) — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 22:18:00 +0000

—Mellow Monk

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Green tea cookies and cream

noreply@blogger.com (Mellow Monk) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 22:55:00 +0000

Delicious magazine has a "tried & tasted" recipe for green tea ice cream and Seattle Weekly a recipe for green tea cookies. Both recipes, incidentally, call for matcha, not tea bags.

We would love to see pictures of the fruits of your culinary labors.

—Mellow Monk

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Seven Cups cruises the canals of Nanxun

noreply@blogger.com (Mellow Monk) — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 23:27:00 +0000

Seven Cup has posted some wonderful photos of their trip to the ancient city of Nanxun, China.

A house situated on the city's famous canal.

—Mellow Monk

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Secret path to a private hangout

noreply@blogger.com (Mellow Monk) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 22:44:00 +0000

Now this would be a wonderful day: taking a leisurely walk through the forest to a cool, quiet seaside hangout. So here are the visuals you need to make that journey virtually during a nice leisurely green tea break.

—Mellow Monk

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Kokura Castle in a cloud of sakura

noreply@blogger.com (Mellow Monk) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 00:54:00 +0000

We just received this — a photo of Kokura Castle, previously misidentified as Kumamoto Castle.

—Mellow Monk

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Green tea, flowers, and scones

noreply@blogger.com (Mellow Monk) — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 03:25:00 +0000

—Mellow Monk

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The wait is over — matcha is back!

noreply@blogger.com (Mellow Monk) — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 07:10:00 +0000

We have just received a shipment of our Matcha Style Powdered Green Tea from the grower in Kumamoto.

Our deepest apologies for the wait. We appreciate your queries asking when it would be back in stock and your comments on how much you enjoy the tea. That really filled us all here with good feelings.

Back by popular demand.

—Mellow Monk

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Photos galore—nature and Japan

noreply@blogger.com (Mellow Monk) — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 23:46:00 +0000

Greg du Toit's nature photos are simply amazing, especially if you like animals.

And some of the shots in this collection of Japan photos are wonderful, too.

A lovely photo from James Justin's Japan 2009 collection.

—Mellow Monk

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Frost-fighting fan in a tea field

noreply@blogger.com (Mellow Monk) — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 00:21:00 +0000

This photo, taken in the orchard of one of our tea artisans, shows a fan that protects the leaves from frost.

The fans rotate slowly, generating only a slight breeze, but that is enough to stop frost from forming on budding leaves.

This is especially important in early spring, when the daytime warmth wakes the plants from their winter slumber, but temperatures can still drop low enough for frost to form in the wee hours.

—Mellow Monk

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"Tea thief" author interviewed

noreply@blogger.com (Mellow Monk) — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 04:45:00 +0000

NPR has an interview with Sarah Rose, author of For All the Tea in China — a truly fascinating-looking book that I mentioned recently — as well as an excerpt of the story.

—Mellow Monk

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Clever and creative tea packaging

noreply@blogger.com (Mellow Monk) — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 23:53:00 +0000

Coat hangers, origami, and cigarettes are not items one normally associates with tea, but they can be found in these clever ideas for tea packaging.

Still and all, this innovation may be the cleverest of all.

After brewing, you may feel pangs of conscience about throwing Mr. Birdie into the recycling bin.

—Mellow Monk

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There will be peace in the flowery valley: two mellow photos

noreply@blogger.com (Mellow Monk) — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 23:45:00 +0000

I stare long enough
and I am in the valley
warm green tea in hand

—Mellow Monk

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Hiroshige galore!

noreply@blogger.com (Mellow Monk) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 23:30:00 +0000

Here is a large, well-organized repository of woodblock prints by the amazing Hiroshige.

Illustration 13, "Namazu," in the Hoeido edition of the Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido Road series.

—Mellow Monk

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5 years for O-CHA and a Cali tea field for Imperial

noreply@blogger.com (Mellow Monk) — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 04:19:00 +0000

O-CHA Teahouse of Greenville, SC is celebrating its 5th anniversary, while in California, Roy Fong of Imperial Tea Court has just acquired a farm where he plans to grow tea.

Tea in California—I think that is wonderfully bold, and I wish Roy the best of luck.

And now for something completely different: Winter Wonderland in Japan, courtesy of Alfie Goodrich.

—Mellow Monk

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Two books—tea espionage and the gardens of Japan

noreply@blogger.com (Mellow Monk) — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 22:59:00 +0000

Read a review of For All the Tea in China, which chronicles the tale of an Englishman who stole the secret of tea from China in the 1800s.

Another book you may find interesting is The Gardens of Japan, which is reviewed here.

A landscape at the Adachi Museum of Art, which is one of the many featured in The Gardens of Japan.

—Mellow Monk

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Tea fields surrounded by the Mt. Aso caldera

noreply@blogger.com (Mellow Monk) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 00:11:00 +0000

In the background is Gairinzan, which means literally "outer rim mountains," as in the outer rim of a crater. Technically speaking, the Aso valley is a caldera, not a crater. In fact, the area's volcanic soil is one of the secrets of its delicious green tea.

—Mellow Monk

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The spring tea forecast—looking good!

noreply@blogger.com (Mellow Monk) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 23:00:00 +0000

Our tea artisans in Aso report that the winter there was a typical one climate-wise, and the tea plants are emerging from their dorman period in excellent condition—healthy, vibrant, and ready to yield up their succulent leaves for us soon.

That's Nekodake in the background.

—Mellow Monk

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Happiness and the two selves

noreply@blogger.com (Mellow Monk) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:33:00 +0000

What your in-the-moment self considers happiness is entirely different from how your reflective self defines as happiness. The latter decides whether you consciously feel satisfied with your life, but it’s the former that determines whether you are truly happy deep down.

That is the conclusion that Daniel Kahneman suggests from his research into how we can feel very differently about an event when looking back than how we actually felt while experiencing the event as it happened.

For instance, have you ever looked back fondly on some past event or past era in your life and thought that you were happy but didn’t realize it at the time? That you wish you had lived more thoroughly?

Conversely, have you ever enjoyed an experience but then looked back on it, focused on some negative aspect, and then begun thinking of that formerly “good time” as a bad time?

This is what Nobel laureate Kahneman calls the conflict between the “experiencing self” and the “remembering self.”

This certainly dovetails with the concept of mindfulness—focusing on the here and now—which is a fundamental part of the Philosophy of Tea. In other words, if our in-the-moment self is the one who truly determines our happiness, then would not focusing on the here-and-now as much as possible make us happier?

This is something worth contemplating over a cup of green tea—or would that not be in the moment?

You do not need to be in a place like this to be completely in the moment, although it definitely helps.

—Mellow Monk

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Memoirs of a Secret Empire

noreply@blogger.com (Mellow Monk) — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 04:16:00 +0000

Part of the PBS series Empires, the three-part "Japan: Memoirs of a Secret Empire" focuses on the rise and fall of the Tokugawa shogunate.

Part 3, "The Return of the Barbarians," chronicles how the country's reluctant opening to foreigners revealed the shogunate's — and the nation's — technological backwardness, eventually leading to the shogun's overthrow and the beginning of Japanese modernization.

Re-enactment scenes from part 3, "Return of the Barbarians."

—Mellow Monk

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