Visit of Uji – most famous tea prefecture – and surprising sushi dinner

Today we visited Uji, which is very close by Kyoto. Almost everybody in Japan refers to the famous teas of Uji, which is a relatively small tea plantation area and most famous for it’s high quality Matcha. We are lucky that we go there accompanied by Toshi san, who is importing Niepoort wines to Japan. He is a tea lover and his wife’s family are tea producers. So we go straight to Namakura Tokichi Honten, which he considers the best tea producer and shop in Uji. After trying their house blend, we take some of it and a very nice looking Kabuse Sencha as well as Premium Kukicha Karigane Quality.

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As we go more to the centre of Uji, we are getting overwhelmed by the lots and lots of teashops. There many Japanese students around and even more tourists. The only thing that helps us, not getting lost, was to look at the distance, where we see the beautiful Uji mountains, knowing that on the other side there is the tea plantations.

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After visiting the temple we have lunch in a teahouse. Green Matcha Soba Noodles with vegetables and for desert a very delicate Matcha with a perfect foam and the traditional Matcha sweet, which is not too sweet (cha dango).

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In the evening we have a very surprising sushi dinner at an almost private house with sushi chef Masashi Ohtani, who also is a sommelier and big burgundy fan. We are more than lucky, as nobody else is there and he spends a lot of time with us explaining every single of the very delicate sushis.

05 Sushi

Besides the excellent quality of the sushi he is able to make the most perfect matches of wine and sushi. The white burgundy (Meursault Genevriere 1995, Francois Jobard) is matching perfectly with the noble white fishes. Also are very happy to see that Ohtani san really likes the Turis 2012 we brought from Douro… even so much that he is opening a wonderful red burgundy for us from his private cellar (G. Roumier Chambolle Musigny 2001). Both are going very well along with the tuna nigiri. At the end we have a Japanese friend more we hope to see again in Portugal.

06 Tomodachi