The book of tea - Uji the tea-famous

Today is coming-of-age day in Japan. You "become" adult at the age of 20 in Japan, being legally allowed to consume alcoholic beverage and tobacco. You may be happy, but this ushers in the agony called hangover.

When I have hangover, I do basically two things to alleviate the agony. The first is to walk as long as time allows, and the second is to have non-alcoholic drink(of course!) as much as possible. The choice of drinks can be coffee, but usually tea.

This usage of tea to cope with hangover is far deviant from the tea that Okakura Tenshin observed in his book, but it is effective. Green tea contains a lot of caffeine and vitamin C. Only if I have tea before I drink!

Zen monk Eisai brought back tea from China in the early 13th century, and planted tea in the suburb of Kyoto, including Kozan-ji and Uji. Since then, Uji has been renowned as home to the best of quality tea.

Central part of Uji city does not have tea plantation, but there are a lot of tea wholesalers and tea blenders. And as Okakura talked, imperfection of tea philosophy or just curiosity has no boundary of imagination, resulting in the creation of green tea KitKat, green tea candy, green tea jelly, green tea Castella sponge cake, green tea soba noodle, and green tea carbonara pasta!

Inside of tea wholesaler Nakamura Tokichi Honten, 12-Jan-2015

Tea wholesaler Yamamoto Jinjiro, 12-Jan-2015

Green tea carbonara pasta on offer, 12-Jan-2015

Tea wholesaler Ito Hisaemon the inventor of green tea KitKat, 12-Jan-2015

Tea wholesaler Izumien the presenter of green tea to Pope John Paul II, 12-Jan-2015

When you are tired of tea, you could even do sightseeing. Uji used to be retreat for nobles in the Heian period of 9th to 12th century, during which Uji was the location that the oldest literature of its kind "The tale of Genji" was depicted in. Also there is Byodo-in temple, which was built to represent the western pure land, a century before Buddhist monk Honen opened the Pure Land School of Buddhism.

World heritage site Byodo-in, 12-Jan-2015