When you have some pieces of chocolate orange peel pound cake for yourself, what kind of beverage would you like?
Hachi would like to ask you, in other words, that what kind of beverage do you think is equal to the powerful flavor of orange peel to unfold it?
A cup of coffee, English tea or what?
Her choice has been a cup of coffee or English tea.
Both of them are tasty.
She likes the aroma of ground coffee which fills a room, and the taste of English tea with ginger and honey.
Yet she slightly felt that a cup of coffee amplified bitterness of orange peel, and a cup of English tea was a little bit soft for the strong flavor of orange peel.
She felt that both of them did not run together with the powerful flavor of orange peel perfectly.
(Those are just her opinion from her past (limited) experience.)
However, she did not think of it further.
She just likes the taste of chocolate orange peel (the combination of raspberry and dark chocolate is lovely as well..!), a cup of coffee or English tea independently.
When she prepared the chocolate orange peel pound cake for Christmas, a new choice, a cup of green tea (Japanese tea, or sencha in Japanese), popped up.
The green tea leaves she got were rather fine for her, and those were a treatment for her as well.
She found that a cup of green tea was equal to the powerful flavor of orange peel, combined each flavor of orange peel and chocolate chips, and finally uplifted all….!
She did not expect that those things could happen on the tray for tea time.
It was because she had an impression that green tea was not powerful as orange peel and as English tea.
However, that might worked well.
Green tea seemed to have the nature of following the nature of orange peel.
The nature of green tea leaves might be supple
Hachi also found that she can brew green tea several times with fine green tea leaves like Chinese tea leaves.
Thinking of the character of green tea leaves, she imagines that something tasty might be compressed in a leaf.
Even if the aroma of green tea leaves does not fill a room like ground coffee does, the aroma of tea leaves in a food package was so good that it made Hachi turn out to be a weird person, smelling it for a while. (She should enjoy it alone.)
How tea leaves will be unfolded depends upon the way tea brews: water temperature, steeping time or equipments etc.
She successfully made a cup of green tea with a certain teapot, but she failed with a glass teapot (the aroma was gone).
She literally jumped because of the sweet taste of cold brewed tea. (Maybe she likes the sweet taste of it.)
Those results are coming from the same tea leaves.
Sustainability might mean uplifting all with hurting nothing
The whole thing reminded her that various possibilities might be existing around us.
One of them might be that a thing can brew several times somehow, and, no matter how many times it brews, it will not hurt anyone or anything. (Certain level of quality of green tea leaves could cause stomachache.)
It is sustainable.
And it might uplift all.
Creating time for empty mind
Hachi is trying to find her stable ways to brew green tea because she got a hunch that she found a new (and perhaps the easiest) way to loosen her mind.
When she experienced that a cup of green tea uplifted all flavors, she was exhausted, feeling that things continuously fastened her mind and time flowed so fast.
She did not what to do to loosen her mind in a short period of time.
The aroma of tea leaves gave her a hunch that she would be loosened in a few minutes.
Then, a cup of hot green tea made her body warm from head to toe.
It was so chilly at the end of the last year in Japan so that cups of hot green tea made her feel like she was in a hot spring.
Yes, the first reaction was not a lovely one; she was groaning….!
Cups of hot green tea gave her 30 minutes of completely thinking nothing, looking out of the window, and immediately made her feel sleepy, which was a good sign for recovery of being loosened.
(The ingredient which made her sleepy might be theanine…..?? and, sunlight makes theanine into catechin….??)
The combination of chocolate orange peel pound cake and green tea unexpectedly uplifted all flavors, and helped to loosen her mind.
It was one of the greatest combination of tastes she has ever had, which went down into a body naturally as well.
