A Green Tea Kind of Valentine!

A day before Valentine’s, I received green tea products from Makinohara City – Sencha Tea Bags, a gorgeous box of Shizuoka Matcha Leaf Pie and Shizuoka Matcha Mitsu Syrup. It was the syrup that set the cogs turning as I automatically thought of pancakes paired with afternoon green tea. The weekend rolled around and we decided to have a warm day at home to try out all the products sent to us.

I made a plate of pancakes drizzled with Shizuoka Matcha Mitsu syrup. Don’t let the photo deceive you, there’s a generous serving of syrup within the pancake folds. While I always see matcha being served with strawberries, the bananas and mikan paired with the sweet matcha syrup just perfectly.

Each Shizuoka Makinohara Sencha tea bag makes for one serving of tea. Following the instructions written at the back of the packaging, we steeped the tea bag for 30 seconds of in hot water, and then with a lifting motion, we gave it 3 to 4 gentle dips into the water before taking it out, and a good hot cup of sencha is ready. The recommended way of making the tea yields the right amount of flavor for my taste – not too strong, and easy to drink.

As if that wasn’t enough, after enjoying our pancakes, we were excited to try the Leaf Pie too. In a beautiful black box were 8 individually Matcha Leaf Pies. The size of each leaf pie is quite generous but not overindulgent. It had a light crunchy texture, and filled with sweet green tea flavored cream. The pie had a light coat of sugar on the surface too. I think this would definitely make for a good omiyage (souvenir) from a trip to Shizuoka.

My own experience traveling to Shizuoka

When talking about Shizuoka, the first two things that come to mind are unagi and green tea. I’ve been to several places in Shizuoka before – Hamamatsu on a business trip, and all around the Izu coast. For the business trip, our conference excursion included visiting the original grave of Tokugawa Iyeyasu near Shizuoka City. I’ve definitely enjoyed eating unagi during our stay, and also brought back unagi pie as omiyage. And thanks to this campaign, I now I know Leaf Pie is also a great option.

On a different visit to Shizuoka for holiday, we drove along the coast of the Izu peninsula. That time, a lot of beautiful coastal towns were preparing to host Olympic surfers. I also remember enjoying delicious seafood while staying in a ryokan near the beach. I also enjoyed stopping at Shimoda, and learning about the place where Commodore Perry forced Japan to open after centuries of isolation. To me, Shizuoka is a prefecture with a lot of things to offer.

I’m looking forward to exploring more of the prefecture. From this campaign a learned a little more about Shizuoka. For one, I didn’t know that 40% Japan’s green tea is produced from the prefecture! I hope to someday see a bit of Makinohara for myself and see the beautiful green tea farms.

This post is supported by Makinohara City, one of City-Cost's Supporters helping City-Cost bloggers to enjoy life in Japan and engage in new experiences.