The one below is a neighborhood just outside of a processing plant that we visited.
I will continue my blogs about my trip, but I didn't want to show any disrespect to those who have been affected by this disaster. I have been in touch with my friends in Japan and I am waiting to hear back about their well being. My prayers and thoughts go out to the people of Japan during this horrible crisis. My personal financial support is going to Samaritan's Purse Relief Efforts. They are already on the ground in Japan with supply blankets, hygiene supplies, and water purification systems to those in need. There are also other organizations that are helping as well.
I thought it might be honoring to those in Japan on St. Patrick's Day, to make "your green drink of the day" an Iced Matcha Latte. While making it and drinking it, we can stop and pray for those in need and if you can support the relief effort financially, that would be wonderful as well!
Iced Matcha Latte
2 teaspoons Matcha powder
6 oz milk (cow, soy, or rice)
Favorite sweetener such as stevia, honey, etc.
Ice
Put Matcha into a martini shaker
(if you don't have one, try a large jar with tight fitting lid)
Dissolve matcha by adding 1 Tablespoon hot water or milk
and stir until matcha becomes a smooth paste
Fill shaker with 1 cup ice
Add milk
Sweeten to taste and stir
Shake well to blend green tea with milk
Strain your chilled green tea latte over a tall glass with fresh ice
Happy Sipping, Supporting, and Praying for those in Japan, Lisa
Posts
Dearest Lisa,
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting this! I agree with you and my heart is heavy as it is exactly in Sendai where we were in the huge shopping department of that harbor town where disaster struck hardest. The Miyagi Prefecture where we visited in July 2007 and stayed, besides Tokyo, is hit very hard. Our host families were in Osaki; our sister-city... I've tried repeatedly to get in touch but so far no response. Let's hope and pray that those we know are okay and that the Japanese nation will find the strength to move on. It will affect the world economy in a big way, just as back in 1997 when we had the Asian financial crisis, starting with Japan.
Hope more people will start looking at life in a 'back to basics' way and have some tea together and ponder about what lies ahead of us...
Lots of love and prayers for our friends in Japan,
Mariette
UPDATE: Just heard from my tea friends and they are OK. However, Japan still needs our help!
ReplyDeleteI just missed the quake by a day or two.
ReplyDeleteI wrote something in my blog
http://sevenbowlsoftea.blogspot.com/
The last blogpost (Dedicated To) generated a lot of positive response from Japan. You can see it in the comments section. It is mostly in Japanese
After seeing the response and how badly my Japanese friends were anguished, we at Jun Chiyabari, Nepal decided to do some CHARI-TEA. Unfortunately we cannot send money directly to Japan because of restrictions here in Nepal so did the next best thing: send tea instead. The teas are already in Japan.
I got two tea buyers (actually one tea buyer and one potential buyer) for this fund raising. They will mostly sell the tea in Nagoya area which was not affected by the disaster. Hopefully with the sort of prices our teas command we should be able to raise some funds if everything goes well. The money will go to Japanese Red Cross.