My father distractedly picked up the cup of Kukicha I proffered him. He brought it to his mouth, took a sip then:
�??What is that?�?� he spouted outraged.
Clearly, not everyone�??s cup of tea.
Or rather, not everyone�??s cup if you are expecting a traditional black or green tea.
Since Kukicha is made with the stalks of the tea bush, it has a distinctly unusual taste. But if you are reasonably open-minded about your notion of tea, it is also unusually rewarding. Its warm, soothing flavor makes it a perfect tea for the evening. Having had it for breakfast this morning, though, I must admit I appreciated its gentleness. It�??s a murmured wakey wakey to Assam�??s loud wake up! call.
Because it was morning and I was in a rush, I used a Lima teabag, which was acceptable, although not the best Kukicha ever. I brewed it in steaming water for about two minutes. It took a lovely light copper color and gave out a scent of toasted cereals�??or at least what imagine toasted cereals to smell like. In the mouth, it reminded me of barley coffee, as Kukicha always does, especially in the long note at the end. Rich and enveloping like a Macchiaioli painting.
I tried to explain all this to my father but perhaps my persuasion skills need honing.
He looked at me from above his glasses and:
�??I�??ll make myself an English Breakfast,�?� was all he deigned to reply.

Common tea. It conjures up images of a chipped cup with a murky liquid of ignoble taste. Whereas Sencha, common tea in Japanese, has a delicate sophistication a natural elegance, which is anything but common. I wonder whether the Japanese, who culturally prize modesty, came up with the name as an understatement. Or perhaps they called it common simply because the tea is extremely popular.

Although it is the most widely served tea in Japan, Sencha is a relatively new creation. Like Gyokuro it is a product of the Edo era, when a Buddhist monk from Saga, Baisao, ditched powder for leaves and started selling his new tea.

Sencha quickly became the symbol of the country�??s artistic renaissance, the drink of choice of the writers, calligraphers and intellectuals that flourished between the 17th and the 19th century. Among them, it became the embodiment of freedom against the stuffy, formal culture of traditional matcha. But as it often happens with revolutions, Sencha drinkers ended up adopting the behavior they had initially rejected�??to the point that the way of Sencha appears as formal as chanoyu to the uneducated eyes of this westerner, although experts assure me that it is more relaxed.

The principle behind the Sencha ceremony is to useprescribed movements to achieve a zen-like state. Perhaps I should have given it a shot today, as some zen calm would have done me a world of good. Instead, I caved in to my Western mind and made a quick Sencha on the hoof while working. I steeped one teaspoon of the leaves I had got from Soana a few weeks ago in 6oz steaming water. Luckily for me, magic happens quickly and it took just three minutes for my cup turned into a meadow of golden grass dotted with wild irises. The mouth was sweet and light with an ever so delicate vegetaley note in the end.

It was as beautiful, calming and relaxing as Monet�??s waterlilies. And though I didn�??t quite reach complete harmony between me and the wider universe, I went very close to it.

Tradition and ultra-modernity meet in Japan more than in any other culture I have come across. And this unusual marriage emerges just as much in tea as it does in architecture. The same country that has been following an incredibly elaborate tea ceremony for nearly six hundred years has also adopted an entirely mechanized tea production process. Unlike China, where a human hand takes tea along much of the journey from the bush to the cup, Japan makes extensive use of machines for harvesting and processing leaves. But then an eye for innovation is in itself a tradition of Japanese teamaking.

Over the centuries, Japanese producers developed new teamaking techniques that gave us teas of the calibre of Sencha. But it is the invention of Gyokuro that fascinates me the most. I can almost picture a tea grower from Uji, eyes shaded by a wide-brimmed hat, glancing up at the sky on a very bright day and wondering: �??What would happen if I shaded my bushes for twenty days? Let�??s give it a shot.�?�

Whatever prompted him to have this thought, he was in for a winner. Gyokuro went on to become Japan’s most expensive tea. To this day, canvas, straw or bamboo mats shelter tea buds for about three weeks before picking. This ensures the leaves are a darker shade of green and imparts a unique flavor to the tea. A flavor which is very easily ruined. The hardest part about Gyokuro is brewing it correctly. I know this because I did it wrong the first time I tried it and ended up with a mouth-puckering, bitter liquor that reminded me of bile.

My mistake was getting the water too hot. The key to brewing a good Gyokuro is to keep water temperature to a maximum of 130F. When I made it yesterday, I steeped 9g leaves for 7oz for about two and a half minutes, though tradition dictates using even more leaves�??as much as 10g for 2oz. My cup was pale green, with a delicious scent of wild meadow, and a strong vegetaley sweetness in the mouth.

What a contrast with the Bancha I had today. While Gyokuro is picked at the beginning of the season, Bancha is picked between summer and autumn so its leaves have a much coarser appearance and milder flavor. The one I had today was a convenience cup made with a Lima teabag, so it wasn�??t, strictly speaking, proper tea, though it was highly enjoyable for a commodity drink. It yielded an amber cup with a strong aroma of toasted cereals. In the mouth it was sweet with a long barley-ish end. Where Gyokuro had the vivid and fresh nature of a Renaissance painting, Bancha had the darker, subdued appeal of the Baroque.

Calm, harmony and me hardly go hand in hand together. Which is why I was slightly apprehensive as I took out cup, scoop and whisk from the kitchen drawers. It was time for chanoyu, and I doubted I could do it.

It takes a lifetime to master chanoyu, which literally means water to tea, but designates the Japanese tea ceremony. A lifetime to do something that will last a few minutes. But then chanoyu is a lot more than gestures. It is a mindset, an approach to life. A triumph of humility and serenity, of intimate and quiet spirituality.

Surprisingly, the roots of today�??s tea ceremony go back to the Azuchi Momoyama era when Japan was hardly ever peaceful. Feudal lords battled for supremacy, resorting to anything from ferocious battled to hired assassins. And yet it was during this troubled time that Buddhist koji Sen no Rikyu rose to prominence as a tea master.

Rikyu replaced the contemporary fashion for expensive cups and pots with everyday tools that spoke of modesty and frugality. He spread the custom of serving tea in a simply furnished teahouse that would be pleasing to the eye but devoid of all luxury�??a single flower in a simple vase was his idea of decorating. Guests would enter through a small door, humbling themselves and leaving behind their caste, and their cares. Inside, every thought, every attention went only to tea.

In 1591, Rikyu fell foul of his master, the daimyo Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who exiled him from Kyoto. But the koji chose to commit seppuku rather than go into an undignified exile.

After his death, the tea ceremony relaxed some of the strict simplicity rules that Rikyu had espoused. However, his principles�??harmony, respect, purity and tranquillity�??survived.
�??Though many people drink tea, if you do not know the Way of Tea, tea will drink you up,�?� he said.

So I set out to learn the rudiments of the Way of Tea today. The secret to chanoyu, I read somewhere, is the elegance of movements that can only come with a relaxed mind. Well, I was as relaxed as I�??d ever be. Which is to say, not much.

Still, I took out my chawan, whisk and tea scoop, rinsed them and dried them. I placed two-thirds of a scoop of matcha into the bowl, then added two oz. steaming water. I whisked the tea then passed the bowl to my guest of honor�??myself.

Swapping places with my host-self, my guest-self admired the brilliant green of the tea, and enjoyed its grassy scent. I took a sip of frothy grassiness with just an idea of pleasant bitterness at the end.

It was lovely. But it really didn�??t matter. Nor did it matter that I was far from zen-like when I started out. Because my first lesson in the way of tea was that the pleasure with chanoyu is in the harmonious magic of simply making tea.

I am usually rather wary of flowery reviews that tell me a tea has hints of banana or underripe tomato. The truth is these descriptions hugely depend on the reviewer’s frame of gustatory reference. And because they are so subjective and hardly ever give me an indication on whether I would actually like to drink that tea.

I remember once reading a wine tasting report which defined a particular wine as tasting of wilted flowers and soaked prunes. Well, I haven’t got a clue what wilted flowers taste of–let alone whether I’d like to find traces of it in my glass. Sometimes, these descriptors trigger mental pictures that can be outright offputting. I remember once an olive oil tasting where the producer was terribly keen to tell us that his oil had apricot notes. Suddenly I had this vision of drizzling apricot juice all over my salad and the thought was hardly appealing.

But then one such flowery description happened on me. I was drinking a cup of Sencha when it hit me. Its scent evoked strong childhood memories of a sun-drenched hillside covered with wild irises. Now I can’t manage to shake it off. No matter how else I try to define it, Sencha for me tastes of wild irises in summer. So I now have a lot more understanding for flowery reviewers.