Jeff Henig has taken some excellent photographs of the Awa-odori festival in Tokyo. For the full festival effect, you need to hear the music, too.—Mellow Monkblog feed, reviews, teas, twitter, videos Read Full Story
A pair of tea-related stories from the Vancouver Sun—one about a tea sommelier and some "less traditional" tea recipies.—Mellow Monkblog feed, reviews, teas, twitter, videos Read Full Story
What I really like about the Aladdin Tea Infuser Mug is that it's equipped with a means of removing your tea leaves from the water (to stop infusion and prevent oversteeping): You simply turn the lever near the lid (see the picture below) to lift the built-in tea infuser up and out of the brewed tea inside. When you finish your first batch of brewed tea, you add more hot water, turn the lever back to the "Brew" position and pretty soon you've got another mug of tasty tea. Easy, convenient, an... Read Full Story
Once again, science proves something we already knew—that green tea drinkers are mellower.To be more specific, a study showed that people who drink at least five cups of green tea per day are less likely to suffer from psychological distress.This finding, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, is just one of the many results gleaned from the "Ohsaki cohort," a group of over 40 thousand people in Japan whose health was monitored over many years. A nice mellow grove of bamboo.... Read Full Story
Deborah Amar has written an excellent ghost story set in Japan ... and with a surprising twist ending.Speaking of ghosts, here is a previous post on a haunted fishing spot.A ghost appears in Edo-era Tokyo.—Mellow Monkblog feed, reviews, teas, twitter, videos Read Full Story
One of Mellow Monk's growers was featured in Kōhō Aso, the city of Aso's official monthly newsletter. As you can see from the accompanying photo below, the story describes a visit by a French TV crew to film some footage for a documentary on Japanese green tea. The director first learned about this grower from a previous European documentary about Japanese green tea, which also featured one of our tea buyers on a trip to the area.Cover caption: "Tea fields in Sakanashi [a district... Read Full Story
Trevor Mott observes that you almost never see hitchhikers in Japan. After an eventful journey starting in Oita, he offers an explanation for this phenomenon.Lake Kinrin (Kinrinko) in Yufuin, Oita.—Mellow Monkblog feed, reviews, teas, twitter, videos Read Full Story
