Travel and tea in Japan, versus Korea

I've recently visited both Japan and Korea, with this post covering travel and especially a tea search in Japan.  I didn't do that search justice given places like Disneyland were a higher priority but I still managed to come across a few interesting teas.

It seems as well to start with general impressions.  People tend to ask which country I liked better, and how the two countries differ.  Of course it really doesn't work to summarize the second; the two places and cultures are far too diverse to really compare in that way.  But still the questions are valid, so I'll make a start.

sakura in Yokoham, Japa

sakura and other blooming trees in Seoul, Korea

To me nowhere in Asia looks like Japan; it's the only fully developed country in Asia in the same sense America and Europe are completely modern.  You can even drink the tap water (take that Europe!).  Korea is not far behind, even ahead in some ways, like internet infrastructure and speed.  It's not as if there are things you can't find in Korea that they have elsewhere (ok, possibly some Japanese things, but it's pretty much all there).

giant Buddha

Aside from that Japan has its own style, something impossible to describe, so that buildings and designed areas have a great look and feel (of course the gardens are unique; I mean everything else), and even nature as well.


I noticed something similar in Bavaria, German, where the country was so tidy that even the woods you could see from roads were a bit landscaped (not seemed so, they were).  But Japan takes it to another level.  Cities have a carefully planned style, even nature does, clothing, etc.

amazing miso ramen

Food is taken to another level in Japan.  Even here in Thailand where Japanese food is popular you can't compare what you can find of it here to there.


A hole in the wall ramen shop near where we stayed served the best ramen and the best gyoza I've tasted (fried dumplings), and we've tried versions from dozens of restaurants between Hawaii--which has more Japanese residents than "white"--or Bangkok, which also has a significant Japanese population.



I keep having the experience of a food not really making sense to me until I try a great version.  This happened on a trip to Japan two years ago related to Japanese food, and especially buckwheat noodles (and related to Korean barbecue and kimchi as a condiment a bit over a week ago, but that's a different story).


Of course people are asking me about the culture and the people more than level of development or landscaping or architecture.  A lot of them are now huge fans of Korea because of K-pop (music) or Korean drama.  Of course those exports don't really relate to how one would interact with the average person in Korea, which is more relevant to a visitor.


Japanese people seemed a bit reserved, so it stood out moving on to Korea when people again started commenting on how cute our one-year-old daughter is (essentially like a doll-baby come to life, really).  But then being a bit quieter isn't so negative, and we ended up in some relatively populated places, which would tend to result in people keeping to themselves more.

happier than most commuters

My son's favorite part of the vacation was the trains in both countries, and the rail system in Japan is more developed and extensive than anything I've seen, sort of the opposite of the US.  Then again the rail system around Seoul is fairly complete too, which was all we needed to use on this trip.  In Japan it's different though, lots of different networks, different types of trains, local and express versions to go everywhere, high speed trains, customized luxury touring trains, on and on.

one of many local train networks; in any other country this would be all of it

 English language use is helpful for us when travelling, and it's not so common in either country.  At least in Korea signs were converted to English, which helped a lot, but in both places down to the last person every by-stander we asked for instructions went way out of their way to help us.

For a typical traveler books like Lonely Planet would cover a lot of step-by-step directions anyway, and use of tourist SIMs (phone cards) and Google Maps could help a lot with pointing the way.

Tea in Japan

Maps knows!  some, at least.

I'd hoped that tea would be so prevalent that it would be easy to find in Japan, and didn't do a lot of prior research about it.  Of course it was common, and I did eventually stumble across some less common teas I'd hoped to find, like Japanese black tea.


Given the limited use of English I wasn't sure Google Maps could identify tea shops (as in Thailand business names aren't always identified in English wording) but it did turn up many.  Cafes--places to get a cup of tea, not bulk loose teas--tend to mix with other shops, so it would be nice to get input ahead of time of just the right place, not so easy to do.


I tried finding tea in Chinatown in Yokohama (which of course worked), and only there it occurred to me they would only sell Chinese teas.  Of course I'm not basing that on visiting a lot of shops; given conflicting time demands I was only in and out of a few places.  So I bought four Chinese teas there instead--strange, but based on trying two so far great value for decent, inexpensive teas.

tea shop in Chinatown

Grocery stores sell tea, of course, but in any country there's the concern that they are usually relatively low grades of tea.  In Japan the language issue made it more confusing; with packaging written only in Japanese I'd be buying it almost completely at random.


I did buy a package of "roasted green tea" in one based on getting help from the staff.  I'll research what that means and add more on it in a separate review post.  It was interesting that most seemed to sell teas from other countries as well; nice they could show such diverse tea appreciation, given the range and quality of their domestic products.


I finally found Japanese black tea in a specialty tea shop, the second such shop I found (essentially just on the way to other places, so the plan to invoke luck sort of worked).  The first shop had sold relatively little Japanese tea, focusing more on sales of teas from other countries.  I never would have found it if I hadn't known the Japanese name for black tea (wakoucha; more background on that here).  It was interesting they seemed to be calling black tea "red" tea (from the Chinese convention, of course), so along with the rest of the language issues asking for Japanese black tea might not ever have worked.


Ordinarily when someone would write about tea in Japan they'd move straight into numerous types of teas Japan is famous for, essentially variations of green tea (for the most part, but of course it's not that simple).  I started on drinking loose tea in the form Japanese green teas years ago (maybe four or five?), but only started going overboard with research and tasting in the last two years, so I never did really completely know what I was drinking.  And I still haven't circled back to that, although I expect to eventually.

To make a long story short I've since preferred Chinese teas, especially more oxidized oolongs and black teas, and tried others from lots of other countries.  To stick to more familiar scope and still try something different I wanted to find Japanese black tea, which did work out.  Japanese grocery stores in Bangkok stock an entire aisle of green teas so really I wouldn't need to get on a plane to get back to basics, when I get around to it.  Of course that assumes that Japanese people could somehow counter the curse of almost all grocery store tea being awful.  After seeing the miracle of their rail system I'd think they might be able to, or maybe it's still asking too much.

Conclusions about Japanese teas

fascinated, and not thinking about tea

I never will be able to settle on objective conclusions based on my limited experience, but even limited findings will need to wait until I actually taste the teas I bought.  I've only been back a few days and I was too busy for tea tasting in Japan and Korea.  Shocking, right?  Probably not to anyone routinely traveling with two young children.  I managed to make tea most of the mornings but it was rushed work, not the right time for breaking out the most interesting teas.

I will write more of my impressions in more standard review posts.

Online tea exploration: preparing for a trip to Tokyo and Seoul

One might read of well organized tea-theme group trips (if you haven't then read about this one, organized by Tealet, or there is a more obscure one in Korea this May), but you typically don't see so much about how to turn up tea leads on your own going places (in Asia, presumably, but of course tea is in lots of places).

I'm about to go to Japan and Korea (Tokyo and Seoul, to be specific), and while my wife plans for outings like Disneyland and Unesco World Heritage sights, or maybe to see sakura blooming (cherry blossoms), I'm looking into tea.  But how would one go about that?

I guess this will be worth a look too (this week, from FB friend)

I'm no travel expert but here are some thoughts, also related to this subject coming up before and in Vietnam and Cambodia last year (in Singapore it seems easier; go to Chinatown).

Tea contacts:

Having friends where you travel would make for a great lead, and a guide.  Even an online contact could help, a forum friend, or someone from a Facebook group (etc.).  I indirectly "know" a number of people in different places and this is still not so simple since you need the right person in the right place to help answer relatively specific questions.

But it could work.  If you come to Bangkok feel free to ask me.

Google:

Almost should be first in this list, right.  Google knows a good bit about lots of things, and combined with Google Maps it's possible to be very specific about locations, and even search by location.

One catch:  Google works much better searching in English in English speaking countries.  Even here in Thailand, where English use is much more common than in Japan or Korea (my take, but kind of an informed one) lots of blind spots turn up.  But the highest profile places Google will know about aren't always the best options.

Tea farms:

This gets into a different kind of trip than I typically take, more related to the Amazing Tea Race subject.  I go on family vacations where I try to stop by tea shops, or even tea districts if a city is set up for that (like Beijing).  I guess the same type of search could apply, just supported by a lot more effort and networking, and without relying on direct internet search quite so much.

A more indirect approach could still work, but there would have to be a way to find people that know people that are hard to contact, willing to act as leads and share contacts that are hard to come by.  That last part would probably be the catch.  Just finding your way to a tea growing region wouldn't be so difficult--no secret where the main ones are--and the subject would come up a lot there, along with lots of related shops and tour options.

Trip advising sites:

For example, the one called Trip Advisor, which posted this entry about the O'Sulloc Tea Shop in Seoul.  The Lonely Planet is another familiar reference, where you might find something like this entry for the Yetchajip Tea House in Insadong, Seoul, or this one for the Beautiful Tea Museum, not far from both others.

Sounds great, right, three places to buy tea.  Maybe, maybe not.  A cafe or museum theme might not be the best place to buy tea, even if both sell loose tea, and the main places tourists go might not match the selection and pricing available somewhere else.  Would be great to talk to a local that loves tea that's spent years working on all that instead, rather than other tourists using the same types of references.  How to do that; good question.

Blogs:

This should be obvious enough to a blogger, right; why couldn't there be someone else sitting at a keyboard in those cities typing out what they experience related to a tea obsession.  I did try that type of lead.

Here is a site dedicated to referencing expat authored blogs in different countries, which could help get around the issue of blogs being written in Japanese of Korean.  I focused more on Korean teas and blogs out of Seoul just because I'd been reading more about Korean teas lately.  I also think we'll have more free time in Seoul, and I'm hoping to have better luck due to everyone drinking tea in Japan.  Also references on Korean oxidized teas sound so interesting, like this one by the World of Tea.

You'd think I would be about to explain how this approach cracked it, but not really so.  Other than references to the three places Google mentioned others cited only tea cafes, which didn't seem promising as loose tea shops (like this one, about a tea cafe, with the cool blog name "cute in Korea.")  If anyone is going to Seoul in June you are absolutely set because there is a tea festival / expo then,  related to information in this blog post / reference site, but that doesn't help me.

Or there are Western oriented blogs that talk about Korean teas, like this one on tea types (Tea at Morning Crane Tea blog), or this blog that covers lots about such teas (Mattcha's blog).  The problem is that typical tea blog entries don't lead back to physical tea shops very often (certainly not if written by an online vendor), so these could more often help you order tea but usually not to find it walking around Seoul or Tokyo.  Of course there could be exceptions, but looking up and reading dozens of tea blog entries is problematic.

Forums, discussion sites:

I don't think Steepster or Teachat is going to help--although maybe, but I didn't try them--but there are countless other forums covering countless other topics.  Again as an expat I thought expats might be one way to get around language problems, so I looked in places like an online penpals site.

Get the impression I have too much free time yet?  Or maybe also that wasting it is sort of a hobby.  Of course that didn't work, but it is one of many ways to talk to strangers, if that sounds like a good thing.

Conclusion:

I went through all this not so long ago, actually, in Hanoi (not all of it; I've escalated the online research part, sort of my thing, trying new research directions out).  There I had the best luck in talking about it on a forum afterwards (the expat blog one I already mentioned), and someone told me about a great reference online, a shop in Ho Chi Minh City, Hatvala, which is not even where I was in Vietnam, or probably all that close to where most of the tea is grown.

I ran across some really nice teas in Hanoi by luck (see a few other blog posts in the last few months), and Google Maps pointed out some other shops (many I didn't get to; gotta go back to Hanoi at some point), so a relatively standard approach and some luck can work.  Time is a part of it; if I had a couple of days to dedicate only to the search for tea it would be easy, but different family members have different agendas, and I'm the only one inclined to focus on tea.


China was a similar story, but I was much less obsessed when we visited back then (a year and a half ago).  My first work trip there started me on tea and a later vacation helped push me over the edge.


I guess there is more to life than tea (really!) and places like World Heritage Sites and Disneyland deserve attention too.  It's nice the travel planning can extend so far into the online world as it does but in my experience the last steps are in real life, and not just related to actually drinking the teas, but often also to finding the best places to get them.  Or there are online shops; of course that works too.

I didn't get far in this particular search beyond identifying the shops I mentioned, which might work out.  A real-life friend will help me find tea shops in Seoul (good luck having one in that city).  The posts that follow about different teas, or lack of such posts, will tell the rest of the story.