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BLOG - February 2016 - Morimoto Tea Tour

11 February 2016

After a long travel from Porto with the express train to Lisbon, and in the evening with the night train from Lisbon to Madrid, we visited some tea shops and hold a "Morimoto Green Tea Seminar" in a kind of tea club, which is located in Madrid. Though, the time in Madrid was so short - only one day - and we already had to leave for Barcelona, which takes a three hours ride with the Spanish variation of an ICE train, how we know it from Germany. Just arrived in Barcelona, we only put our lagage in our little apparment, where we stay for two nights, and then directly took the underground to the first tea place. In Barcelona we visited many places, which have a more or less strong connection to tea or especially to Japanese green tea, naturally hoping that the tea lovers here in Barcelona will also like the Morimoto green teas, and drink more and more in the long run. One place, which focuses more on Chinese tea is very beautiful, and we are really happy that we had a nice meeting there and got the chance to drink wonderful teas, which were infused 100% professionally by the Chinese tea expert of this fantastic place.

Haruyo Morimoto, Shigeru Morimoto and Marimo in an absolutely beautiful Chinese tea house in Barcelona

7 February 2016

Cor de Tangerina is a very beutiful vegetarian restaurant, which impressed us with really innovative vegetarian food. Our Morimoto green tea seminar, where we did not only talk about tea, and answered many questions to the guests, who came to Cor de Tangerina in Guimaraes, was a huge success, because from the beginning we only saw samiling faces. Probably this was not only thanks to the nice teas we infused, but also thanks to the fact that the guests of this heartful place really were happy to have the change to meet Haruyo and Shigeru Morimoto in person. Our deep thanks to all our nice guests who listened to our talks and tasted our Morimoto teas today!

Shigeru Morimoto talking about green tea production

The guests of our Morimoto green tea seminar at Cor de Tangerina in Guimaraes

Infusion of GO EN Kabuse Tamaryokucha at Cor de Tangerina in Guimaraes during the Morimoto tea seminar

6 February 2016

Today was the first "Morimoto Tea Event" of our Morimoto Europe Tour 2016. Since we were looking forward to meet some very special guests at a very special place, Haruyo and Shigeru Morimoto where really exited, before the event started.

Photo: Interior of the National Monument Casa de Cha by Architect Alvaro Siza Vieira

The Morimoto and us - Marimo and Camelia, our Portuguese partner and friend - were very happy to be invited to the Casa de Cha, which was the first building of architect Alvaro Siza Vieira, who already two times received the Pritzka-Price. It is buit directly at the seaside, in Matosinhos close to Porto. Nowadays, the well-known chef Rui Paula has one of his restaurants in this fantastic building, where today to first Morimoto Tea Event of this year's Morimoto Tours is going to be held.

Photo: Morimoto Matcha Gyokujou - Preparing for this day's Morimoto Event in Casa de Cha in Porto

Today we are going to infuse a specific selection of Morimoto's organic green teas, beginning with Morimoto Yangicha and Sencha with Matcha. Though, bearing in mind that we are going to be in a really high class restaurant, we naturally also have teas on our agende like Morimoto Shiraore and the quite rare Morimoto Tokujou Kabusecha GO EN.

Photo: Haruyo Morimoto and Tobias training the infusion of GO EN for the event

Naturally we are not only here to infuse the teas from the Morimotos, which probably also would be not bad for the guests coming here, but in order to give our guests an interesting and deeper view into the world of Japanese teas, we also talk much about tea production, and different sorts and varieties of Japanese green tea. Therefore, we have a very traditional tee with us, a Kamairicha, which was produced on really old machines, and will compare this with the GO EN, which also has curled leafs, but is already produced with steam and not with dry heat. Finally our guests will find out today, together with us, why and how also steamed teas can taste very different, even of the same variety, if the form of the leafs was shaded with different processes. Giving a special honor to the Tokujou Kabuse Tamaryokucha GO EN, we brought the Gyokuro Kyusu from the Japanese pottery artist Narieda Shinichiro, who is also a friend of Morimoto family, to infuse this precious tea.

Photo: Our guests in Casa de Cha, who came to the Morimoto Tea Event

Most guest came to the event from Porto, and from regions close to Porto. We are very grateful that since Nina started to promote the teas from Marimo around five years ago, the number of tea shops, coffee shops, fine food shops and high scale restaurants grow from year to year, which are selling and promoting the teas from Marimo. From these shops, also many guests came to the Morimoto event, for which we want to express our deep gratitude. Though, some guests came also from quite far away, namely from Lisbon. Thanks to two very special people, who help Nina to go on with hear Japanese tea garden near Porto, also the Japanese embassador himself came from the Japanese Embassy in Lisbon, together with his secretary. Both were more than happy to taste the teas from Haruyo and Shigeru Morimoto, and were especially impressed by the soft, sweet and round flavour of the new treasure of Morimotos, the Morimoto Matcha Gyokujou.

Since for us (Marimo, Nina and both Morimotos) it is 100% clear and like self-evident that the teas from Morimoto are produced organic, we totally forgot to tell this to our guest during the event. Event more due to this fact, our guests from Japan, who drank Morimoto tea for the first time, were astanished to hear about Morimoto's organic production philosophy. We (Marimo and Nina from Camelia, our Portuguese partner) would like to thank again all our guests for coming to the event, and especially would like to express our deep gratitude to them who travelled several hours from Lisbon to participate at Morimoto's tea event in Porto, in Casa de Cha.

Photo: Shigeru and Haruyo together with Carlos, the sommelier of the restaurant in Casa de Cha

Photo: Casa de Cha by night, after the Morimoto Event

5 February 2016

Yesterday Haruyo and Shigeru Morimoto arrived in Frankfurt. After their long flight from Miyazaki to Europe, they were really happy just to arrive and do nothing else than going to bed. Today we met in the Marimo office, and had a long planning meeting for our "2016 year's projects" and naturally for preparing the events of the "Morimoto Tour 2016", which will start tomorrow. In the evening we took the last flight to Porto, where we will have the first tasting of our tour in a very special restaurant.

As always, Morimotos have their tea with them also during travelling - no day without green tea

The Morimoto Marimo Team one evening befor the tour starts in Porto

29 January 2016

Only six days until Haruyo and Shigeru Morimoto will arrive in Frankfurt. Only seven days until the Morimoto Europe Tour 2016 will start!