I ran through my all the teas that I keep at my desk yesterday, except for this packet of matcha, a finely ground green tea from Japan. I had been putting off drinking it because the preparation is different from the teas that I normally prepare. I thought it would be difficult to get a good infusion because proper matcha preparation is at the heart of the elaborate Japanese Tea Ceremony. After poking around a little on the web, however, I found that like most tea you drink it as you like. The only hard and fast rule being that you not use boiling water in the preparation of matcha.

I put teaspoon or so of the fine powdered tea into the cup and wisked it up with a spoon (I did not have a regulation bamboo whisk with me). I am still playing around with the concentration of matcha to water. If you never have had tried this drink it is surprisingly thick and frothy because the tea powder is suspended in the cup.

We at tbdtea.com were recently contacted by Dr. Manjit Handa at Healing Matrix. He was looking for information on tea, its history and health benefits. We looked around their site liked what we saw and agreed to have our article on the history of tea reprinted. Now you can checkout the article again in either its original form or at its new home - now updated with a list of references for those of you who need to know more.