Matcha Demonstration at T2

Posted April 27th, 2015 in Perth WA No Comments »

Matcha – finely ground powder of specially grown and processed green tea – is known as one of traditional Japanese tea and I get to see lots of “matcha” products everywhere in the world such as matcha ice cream, matcha latte (I miss it!!), and matcha cheese cake, just to name a few. However I don’t think many people actually know what matcha really is and how real matcha tastes like, and especially how to prepare and drink matcha. Do you?

Well, guess what. I actually do not know how to prepare matcha (even though I’m Japanese!) in the way it’s supposed to be, and I don’t think many Japanese people do either. So it was not a surprise for me when I was told that some staff at T2, one of Australia’s largest tea shops, did not know what to prepare and drink matcha.
Nowadays you will need to go to some class to learn sadou (茶道 : the traditional etiquette of preparing and drinking tea) if you’d like to learn how to prepare matcha.

Eisetsu-san, a Japanese tea ceremony instructor who lives here in Perth, approached T2 after seeing 2 jugs of matcha green tea at their tasting counter – one was matcha x lemonnade, and another was matcha with some cut fruits in it. Well, you probably can drink matcha like this and it could be an “Australian style” or a new way of drinking matcha, but it was far from matcha’s original method of drinking. Drinking matcha actually involves preparation as well, and Eisetsu-san wanted to introduce Perth people the whole process of matcha making.

Her first matcha demonstration was held on 26th of March this year at T2 in Claremont Quarter, and she served 32 bowls of matcha to guests. Her demonstration brought more people into the store, and now she is having other matcha demonstrations across Perth. Her schedule is listed below;

03/May/2015 Hinata Cafe in Bibra Lake @ 10:00AM~4:00PM
07/May/2015 T2 in Claremont Quarter shopping centre @ 3:00PM
16/May/2015 Green Tea House in Subiaco @ 2:00PM

She is also receiving some offers from high schools and university for demonstration.

If you have interest in sadou (茶道) – Japanese tea ceremony -, please contact her. She runs classes on occasional bases in Perth (which I’d like to join in future).
eiko2525hiyuli<at>gmail.com