Iced Tea Ceremony
I just happened to catch a demo of Ito’s ceramic green tea grinder as I was walking through the Japanese market Shirokiya. They were serving iced green tea made from the powder of high quality leaves. The tea was amazing! I now prefer the iced green tea to hot tea, but the grinder was $40 dollars which seemed too expensive so I passed on it. I continued to think about it over the next few days, and returned to purchase the grinder.
The outer casing is plastic, but the grinder is ceramic and the gears and crank are metal, providing a really satisfying amount of tension when you grind. The top is removable to insert tea leaves. A gear in the bottom allows you to adjust anywhere between a fine powder and a chunky mix of leaves. Any whole tea leaf can be used, but the instructions recommend against using other types of tea that may include rice or tougher non-leaf items. The bottom of the grinder unscrews to access the powder. Alternately you can remove a tiny stopper on the bottom and access a thin stream of powder in case you wanted to just empty the contents into a water bottle or similar container.
I can say hands down it’s my favorite new toy. I have been dinking two glasses of the iced tea at work everyday, and plan to try making kakigori and macha ice cream soon. The Ito site has some cool recipes including green tea cookies, cream cheese and a green tea smoothie.
Wow,
I would LOVE to have that grinder!
So let’s be clear that the end result powder is NOT the same thing as matcha green tea, correct?
I would say it’s the same as the matcha used for tea ceremony, provided you use high quality leaves.
I was wondering if you’ve tried any other teas in this grinder, and are any of them bitter?
Thanks!!
I have not. I have been wondering if I should give it a try. You are not supposed to get the ceramic gears inside wet. If I try it, I will have to clean it thoroughly with a brush before and after.
I would like to give white tea a try.
If you ever give soba noodles a matcha sauce to go with it, please do share! That sounds interesting - but maybe a little thick? A green tea grinder.. what a great find!!! I want one!
Colleen is uber jealous of your new toy, and so am I! I just may have to buy one for her.
Hey, John, your incredible knowledge of Japanese cuisine which I can say is wider and deeper than many Japanese youngsters amazes me all the time.
Why don’t you let your new toy meet sea salt, and make your own “maccha salt” for tempura. It’s such a luxury to grind the hand-made maccha salt right before tempura is prepared.
@Tashin-san: Oooo! That sounds so good. I will definitely try it. I have been thinking about kabucha tempura recently, so this is the perfect excuse to fry some!
[…] recently bought a green tea grinder after reading this. I’ve been using it nonstop all week, mostly for drinking. When you think of powdered tea you […]
i purchased it last week shortly aftter reading this. i use it to grind up organic sencha. matcha is made from specially grown tea leaves that are de-viened, not only is it finer in texture but also distinctive in flavor. while you can try to make a matcha-like salt mix, the effect would be different. maybe if u grind up gyokuro(grown the same way as matcha), it might taste more like matcha.
i made a green tea pound cake http://eatyet.wordpress.com/2008/02/03/green-tea-grinder-and-pound-cake/ , the powdered sencha taste very different than matcha.
@Lina: Thanks for the info on Matcha! That thoroughly clears up the question that Hillary asked (and I incorrectly answered). I’m going to check out your pound cake right now.
I use a casablanca mint green tea in mine. If you pre grind the tea in a regular food processor you get a much better result. Add some fresh lime juice to the mint green ice tea. Delicious.