I Made a Cup of Hot ‘Iri Bancha’ Tea

I Made a Cup of Hot 'Iri Bancha' Tea

Greetings From Kyoto

Kyoto photographer Kosuke Okuda and I teamed up to do an article for the Russian travel magazine Afisha Mir (Афиша-Мир). I just got a PDF of the article — hot off the server!

In the article I introduced the long history of Aritsugu which was founded in 1560. Aritsugu is one of the most famous makers of traditional Japanese knives and they are found in good kitchens all over Japan. We focused on the special eel bone cutting ‘honegiri’ knife that is used for the traditional Kyoto summer delicacy of ‘hamo’ pike eel. The knife is over 40 cm long, weighs more that 500 gm and costs more than $1,000 USD!

I wrote it, but I can’t read it!!

Kyoto photographer Kosuke Okuda and I teamed up to do an article for the Russian travel magazine Afisha Mir (Афиша-Мир). I just got a PDF of the article — hot off the server!

In the article I introduced the long history of Aritsugu which was founded in 1560. Aritsugu is one of the most famous makers of traditional Japanese knives and they are found in good kitchens all over Japan. We focused on the special eel bone cutting ‘honegiri’ knife that is used for the traditional Kyoto summer delicacy of ‘hamo’ pike eel. The knife is over 40 cm long, weighs more that 500 gm and costs more than $1,000 USD!

I wrote it, but I can’t read it!!

Kyoto photographer Kosuke Okuda and I teamed up to do an article for the Russian travel magazine Afisha Mir (Афиша-Мир). I just got a PDF of the article — hot off the server!

In the article I introduced the long history of Aritsugu which was founded in 1560. Aritsugu is one of the most famous makers of traditional Japanese knives and they are found in good kitchens all over Japan. We focused on the special eel bone cutting ‘honegiri’ knife that is used for the traditional Kyoto summer delicacy of ‘hamo’ pike eel. The knife is over 40 cm long, weighs more that 500 gm and costs more than $1,000 USD!

I wrote it, but I can’t read it!!

Kyoto photographer Kosuke Okuda and I teamed up to do an article for the Russian travel magazine Afisha Mir (Афиша-Мир). I just got a PDF of the article — hot off the server!

In the article I introduced the long history of Aritsugu which was founded in 1560. Aritsugu is one of the most famous makers of traditional Japanese knives and they are found in good kitchens all over Japan. We focused on the special eel bone cutting ‘honegiri’ knife that is used for the traditional Kyoto summer delicacy of ‘hamo’ pike eel. The knife is over 40 cm long, weighs more that 500 gm and costs more than $1,000 USD!

I wrote it, but I can’t read it!!

Today I made my first pot of hot tea since I can’t remember when. Autumn is about here! (Not quite cool enough to see the steam in this photo.)

My first hot tea of the season was Iri-bancha, from Ippodo.

Bancha is the tea that people drink at home everyday. Iri, means roasted. This is made with the lowest quality leaves and twigs of the tea plant and is well roasted. This Iri-bancha is REALLY smoky. In fact, it smells just like a pot pipe, if my recollections from my youth serve me. So much so, that I hesitate to send it back home to friends in the mail or take it on the airplane with me. When I give it to people back home, they always love it as it is nothing like the other Japanese teas they have experienced.