Planting new field of tea

Finally, after a long soil conditioning and getting the plants ready, we just started planting our new tea field. The weather condition is great. We get enough rain, but dry enough to get out in the field.

Thanks to all the people who helped prepare and plant the field.

Posted by Picasa

Comments

  1. Unknown5/8/09, 8:28 PM

    This is so exciting! Can't wait to see it in a couple of years.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Green tea infused sake and avocado sashimi

Image
My favorite green tea and avocado combo is premium green tea infused sake and avocado sashimi.  Avocado is rich and creamy, and texture reminds me of toro, or fatty tuna and uni, or sea urchin. Mauna Kea Premium green tea is cold infused at room temperature for 5 hours in Kikusui junmai ginjo sake.  1 tablespoon (0.25oz) of green tea to 1/2 cup of this sake is a bit more than what I would use for brewing in hot water. I first got the idea of infusing green tea in alcohol from chemical analysis done at University of Hawaii, Hilo (UH Hilo).  They extracted and measured EGCg, Theanine and caffeine contents of green tea with boiling water, but what struck me was that their baseline concentrations of EGCg, Theanine and caffeine were extracted with methanol for 1/2 hour. MK premium Green extraction Theanine % Caffeine % EGCg % Boiling water 0.45% 0.35% 0.83% Methanol 0.11% 0.28% 1.73% High level of EGCg makes alcohol extraction bitter? Methanol extraction showed high level of
Read more

Red Bean Bread - anko remix

Image
I was going to make anko from azuki red beans and honey or cane sugar, but I didn't cook beans long enough so that it was still crunchy. Generally it gets soft all the way much like re-fried bean. Anyway, instead of using this red bean chunky mush as anko, or red bean filling in a bun, I mixed it in a dough. Here is the recipe. 4 cups flour (3:1 ratio of white and whole wheat) 1 1/2 cups water 1/2 tablespoon commercial yeast or use your own yeast culture 2 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup olive oil 1 cup chunky red bean paste 1 teaspoon ginger powder black sesami seeds note that there is no sugar added to yeast to rise. Instead of adding sugar, I use 1 cup flour, salt, ginger powder, olive oil and yeast mixed in 1 1/2 cup water and let it rise at 90 - 100F in an oven for 60 - 90 min. Once it gets a little bubbly, add the remaining flour to the mix and keep kneading. Also mix in the red bean paste once the dough starts to get more maneuverable without sticking to your hands too much. Make
Read more

How we decide to be tea farmer

It's a long and complicated story.  Knowing my background might give some understanding too. Natural farming and tea are not two separate things.  In my mind, natural farming provides a raw ingredient, tea leaves of natural purity, and tea processing helps to bring out that natural purity in a more visible and detectable form.  Tea is one way of showing what nature can do.  It could have been any crops, but the world of tea allows me to look deeper into differences in quality and there are people who actively seek the true quality and subtle details.   I never have been a believer of destiny, but I do believe that the universe designs things to work for us in some mysterious way and it sends energy to take our dreams to reality.  But, just like that, the idea of organic farming came into the reality of my life at the right time.  When my wife and I got to the big island, the land we were going to farm was surprisingly suitable for tea cultivation.  Nursery stock was available f
Read more