Matcha tea and ice cream are the taste of Japan
An encounter with the revered green tea, overseen by imperious felines, sparked a life-long obsession.
Not long after I enrolled at university in Tokyo many moons ago, my friend, Akemi, suggested I join her for a matcha. Did she mean matches? Had she suddenly taken up smoking?
I asked my language tutor what it meant. He cocked an eyebrow and told me it was powdered green tea. He had a portable stove and a saucepan of water on the go in his office at all times. His serves of green tea tasted like a brew of lawn clippings but I’d sip away and nod my head like one of those bendy toy figures on a car’s dashboard. And later, I would have just such a bobber in my first car, a tiny Nissan Sunny. It was of Hello Kitty, that crafty little minx who’s still at it, currently gobbling up the pocket money of my young granddaughter.
Akemi took me to a matcha cafe, which was also a cat cafe, but not of the kitty doll kind. This was my introduction to a place where customers could pat felines presiding on velvet cushions and looking unamused, like tiny, cranky empresses.
It was in high-rise Shibuya, not far from Harajuku, where I lived. No one I met in Tokyo actually resided in a house, and pets generally were banned in apartment buildings. So there I was with Akemi and avoiding eye contact with an imperious Persian when out came two bowls of frothed green matter and a tiny bamboo whisk to create extra foam. So this was matcha. In I went, and I’ve barely left matcha alone since.
It tasted, on that first sip, like the distilled essence of Japan, as if all I knew, or hoped to know, was in that ineffable, earthy flavour. I graded the many types I tried, rated the various cafes where such research was conducted, and started a matcha journal. Akemi grew tired of this, so she took me to her home prefecture of Shizuoka, in the shadow of Mt Fuji, where the best green tea leaves are harvested, and she introduced me to matcha ice cream. A new leaf in my book.
More recently, I’ve discovered I can wear it, too. Obvious Un Ete by perfumer Maebh McCurtin “brings to life the soft, creamy notes of the beverage, with a long-lasting matcha accord”. Yum. Hopefully no cats will pick up my trail.
Try matcha or roasted sencha soft serves at Kyoto’s Ujicha Gion Tsujiri store. Obvious Un Ete (100ml; $199) is available online at Libertine Parfumerie and at David Jones.