Buckwheat tea! NOT Buckfast wine!
If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee. -Abraham Lincoln
I got few letters, so I wanted to write something how important it is to have something physical on your hands in the era of transition from the mass production to virtual reality oriented world. I realized that I haven't done much research on it, and I don't have much time till the end of next week, so you guys have to wait for that... On the other hand, I didn't want to lose the habit of writing random stuff, so today I will talk about the buckwheat tea; as a part of an answer to the request by teaperson from the previous post.
Buckwheat, is a strange plant. I read it somewhere that they decided to mimic the cereal plants so that birds and human can spread the seeds for them; although they are not related to cereals at all. I think the author of that article (or book) commented how pathetic they are just like some people (I think that's why I remember this, but I forgot where I read this :P).
Frankly, I didn't know that it is eaten outside the eastern Eurasian countries until I wen to France. My friend told me that a type of crape called garette is made of sarasin, which is a french word for buckwheat (if she's correct though, probably she is). In Japan, it's eaten in forms of a noodle and it's called Soba. To be honest, I don't like it so much, I prefer Udon (wheat based noodle) than Soba but in a form of tea, god oh god, it's delicious.
It is different from Soba-Yu, which is water that's left after making Soba noodle. It's like the pasta water; it might sound disgusting, but it's pretty good, a lot of neutrients in there too and gluten free (they are not wheat remember!). Anyway, buckwheat tea (Soba-tea) tastes like chesnut; it has it's mildness and has a bit of Shibu-mi which is like the taste hidden in the bitterness of cacao which enriches the flavour. Because of that, it is great with a chocolate. It enriches the bitterness of the cacao and sweetness of the sugar and milk in your mouth. Seriously with a pot of buckwheat tea, I can finish a box of chocolate, if I'm not afraid of getting diabetes.
The good thing about it is that it has no caffeine. So you can drink them at night, perhaps after a dinner with a nice chocolates while writing some stupid nonsense on the internet.
You can buy Soba-tea, in a big Asian supermarket. In Glasgow, that's Seewoo supermarket; I bought few packs and that lasts months and months. It seems that buckwheat tea is getting popular in Japan and China, and many Asian supermarket started to selling them outside the Asia. It's great! Although Seewoo only sells one kind of the tea from Ito-en, I have few different kinds shipped from Japan; when it's over come to Glasgow and try some!
While you are in Glasgow, there is also a very exotic delicious wine called buckfast tonic wine, but that's another story for another day.
