Tea: one of the great pilars of Japanese diet
On the book Japanese Women Don’t Get Old or Fat ‒ Secrets of My Mother’s Tokyo Kitchen , Naomi Moriyama and William Doyle tell that Japanese culinary has been based on seven pillars for over one thousand years. Those ingredients are credited to be responsible for Japanese people good health and longevity. The sixth one is the tea. The authors say that there’s not a beverage more Japanese than Green Tea. The essence of the Tea Cerimony is valuing one single moment in time and performing it requires years of training and practice: when the kettle whistles, the tea herb is taken away from the fire and put to cool down while the hostess puts green tea powder, or matcha, in the tea bowl. The green tea comes from the camellia sinensis , but it is less processed than the black teas because its leaves are exposed to the oxidation process for a shorter period. The tea used for the matcha is particularly fresh. A Zen monk brought tea seeds from China to Japan by the end XII century and b