Matcha Memories

I went to the bookstore today and become one of those people. The ones who sit in coffee shops and drink lattes and giggle with their friends over socially accepted classics. Because I hadn't finished the book we were discussing, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, I arrived early to catch up. The end result was that my latte was consumed in a solitude that encouraged random musings.

                               Since I was already in a coffee shop attached to a bookstore, reading a classic, and since I wasn't eating sushi, I figured that the only thing to order was a Matcha, or green tea, Latte. And since I was alone, and had finished the book (it's only about sixty-nine pages), I sat there soaking in the atmosphere of cultivated class and thinking about my memories of matcha. I've had the extreme honor of witnessing a Japanese tea ceremony, and I even got a chance to try my hand at it. It is one of the most elegant things in the world. I remember kneeling on the tatami mat floor of the tea master's house. She had assured us that if our legs got tired it would be okay to fold them next to us instead of sitting on them, but the group I was with bravely ventured forth, ignoring the protest of our limbs. The apprentice came out and I remember that she was dressed like any business woman in a knee length pencil black skirt ensemble. She prepared the tea before us, and we drank it. But first she had to kneel, and I'll never forget watching her lower herself to her knees, making sure to keep her skirt smooth, balancing on her toes until her knees touched the woven floor, and then letting her feet fold into each other under her. When she got up later she replayed it all in reverse: rising to the balls of her feet, standing, and sitting the heels back down. One fluid motion. Elegance. 

                                       Watching her make the tea was like that too. The word ceremony is not merely a nod to the history of the thing, or the art of the affair, but to the whole atmosphere of decided precision. Every move of the arm had been practiced, even down to the scooping of the green powder into the cups. And there were the formal responses we were instructed to utter on receiving the cups, and the way  we tried to copy her intentional movements as we turned the cups around to face forward - a hard task, as the glazed pottery cups, bowl like in size  and shape, had no distinctive pattern on them to tell us uninitiated where the front was. 

                                   Matcha is green, and bitter. Due to the method of whisking, done with a little bamboo whisk, there is a surprising amount of froth on top, almost as if it were a latte. The smell is the worst part of it, but its looks aren't entirely inviting either. Many people refer to it as pond scum, and I couldn't help but smile at the accuracy of that statement when I looked at the green contents of my latte this morning. I've had traditional Matcha only two or three time, but I could only find one picture of it. I'm pretty sure it wasn't taken by me either. The latte is definitely sweeter, creamier, and more subtle than the traditional. There is no call to gulp it down as fast as possible, or to hold your breath while swallowing. The dregs are not as shocking to the taste buds, and there is no cause for the cloyingly sweet little treats that are usually part of the matcha ceremony. But of course, there is also very little of the enchanting mystique that surrounds the foamy tea. Even the mysterious knowledge of the Starbucks staff cannot compete with the wisdom of the tea master as she deftly measures the water out with a little bamboo ladle, running her hand down it smoothly, returning it again to its ordained spot with a manner that suggests that failure to do so would cause the tea to curdle, the sky to darken, and all of man kind to fall of the face of the Earth.  

Have you ever driven across a one-lane wooden bridge?