Here is a video of how to make matcha ice cream. Just follow the instructions given by a dog and you’ll be on your way to creating a new, unique type of dessert. Watching this really makes me feel awkward, at the same time it’s kind of funny, but in the end nothing coming from Japan can surprise me anymore.
Here is a product video of the Nilufer Tea Set inspired by flowers – especially water lilies, featuring a tea glass and saucer with chrome tea petals that prevent the spoon from sliding to the middle of the saucer. Designed by Sait Alanyali.
Here are some videos of yerba mate harvesting in the Paraguayan rainforest. In the second video you can see how yerba is packed and transported in large sacs. The leaves are taken from small yerba mate trees that can grow up to 15 meters in height.
Two different takes on the Japanese Tea Ceremony, one by a woman and one by a man. The Tea Ceremony is a ritual which pays respect to the objects of daily use and highlights the art of tea-making. In Japan the Tea Ceremony is also a gesture of hospitality, an important part of culture and a way to socialize with others.
This is a very inspiring and well made short documentary about tea, by Jussi Rautaniemi. It takes place in a tea room called Dobra Cajovna located in central Prague, Czech Republic. Hubert Hatle, a tea master, speaks about how he experiences tea and the atmosphere surrounding this ancient beverage. Take a look, it’s really worth watching.
A simple video of how to prepare matcha using a sieve, bowl and a chasen
This is a video from 1941, with tea tips and six golden rules of making a good cup. It also shows how tea was prepared in large amounts during wartime. It may be old and a bit comical, but hey! still relevant. And remember kids – stale water means stale tea!
An Einsteinish professor discusses different aspects of tea from the chemical point of view. It’s quite enjoyable and fun to watch.
This is an great video about blooming/flowering teas and the most interesting part is towards the end, when they show how these teas are made by hand and what process they go though. It is truly amazing how much work goes into creating one of those and it requires a lot of patience and dedication.
Tea Fight could be something to watch for tea fanatics, although a little bit cheesy and exaggerated at times, it’s a solid, entertaining movie. It’s a recent movie, from 2008 filmed in Japan and Taiwan.
IMDb synopsis - In Sung dynasty, a Japanese man named Yagi… couldn’t take the badgering from the male black tea tribe and ridiculed that the male black tea was not the best tea in the world; causing the two tribes to challenge each other in a “tea fight.” The male black tea tribe massacred the female black tea tribe and burned down the tea farm. A child escaped from the fire and turned into a fire dragon and flew away after drinking a mixture of both male and female black tea. It wasn’t until then that the male black tea tribe realized that they had made a big mistake, thus begins the long journey in search of the female black tea. In 2007, the descendant Yagi stayed away from tea after his wife died in an accident years ago which he believed is the deed of a curse by the black tea. Yagi’s daughter, Mikiko couldn’t take anymore of her father’s dwindling behavior, so she decided to head to Taiwan to look for the legendary black tea after finding a cure for the curse in an ancient book. There’s an “underground tea market” somewhere in Taiwan that sells rare expensive tea from around the world. The owner of the market is Yang who is the heir of the ancient “male black tea tribe.” Mikiko started to fall in love with Yang after being saved by him, what she didn’t know is that she is slowly falling into Yang’s trap. Yagi who came after Mikiko to Taiwan, met Rufa, who is the heir of the ‘female black tea tribe,” during his journey of finding his daughter; like Mikiko, Yagi is also falling into a trap. Each for their own cause, Yagi, Mikiko, Yang, and Rufa are tangled up in a web of love and hate; their quest for the black tea can only take them deeper into the web…
