Boiled Tea Rice

おちゃづけ

Boiled tea rice, as the name suggests, is rice made with tea. It sounds like a dish made simple enough. However, there are many requirements to make boiled tea rice.

Here, I want to talk about the requirements from the following aspects: rice, tea and ingredients. For rice, sushi-like rice may be suitable. Freshly steamed, sticky rice may not meet the requirements. Secondly, it would be better to choose the best tea leaves. The taste of the tea should be a little stronger so that the taste can be reconciled. Finally, we will pay attention to the ingredients. Nowadays, there are more and more types of boiled tea rice, with the ingredients being more and more refined, so the nutritional value becomes higher. Adding wasabi, soy sauce, miso soup, miso, mirin, and sesame, then with a helping of dried plum, sea sedge, cod roe, salmon, tuna, eel, snapper, the originally simple boiled tea rice can be elevated to be more perfect and delicious.

By chance, I found a boiled tea rice restaurant in a food court in Japan. A menu displayed on the door attracted me. This dish spread eel cubes and egg silk on the boiled tea rice. The eel meat melts my mouth with the fragrance of tea soup, leaving people with an endless aftertaste.

In fact, this simple dish a Japanese favourite, and the Japanese even call May 17^th as the “boiled tea rice” day. The ingredient packet of boiled tea rice can be easily found in Japanese supermarkets. The most famous Japanese brand “Nagatanien”（永谷園） was the first company which introduced the flavoring bags. The method is very simple. On cold winter days, I am desperately eager to have a bowl of boiled tea rice. I will be warm and no longer afraid of the cold after eating the boiled tea rice. In addition, the boiled tea rice has a good therapeutic effect, which can clear away heat and tiredness, soften blood vessels, and prevent cardiovascular disease. But if you eat it too regularly, it will also affect your digestion of the stomach and intestines.

Directly adding boiled tea to the cooked rice, and then adding the ingredients. Even though it is simple, it blends well with the seven words firewood, rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar and tea that we often say, summarizing people’s ordinary and light daily life. Although the taste of the tea is slightly bitter, the ingredients above blended the astringency of the tea appropriately and dotted each of our ordinary days as well.

It made me think of a Japanese movie, “Taste of the Boiled Tea Rice”. The director, Ozu Ajiro, described the daily life of a husband and wife who lead a contradictory life caused by different living habits. In that movie, a simple boiled rice tea plays the role of harmonious intermediary in their relationship. The wife and husband understood the philosophy of life because of this bowl of boiled tea rice. In fact, life is like the boiled tea rice as well, plain but with distinctive flavor.

The method of making boiled tea rice is very simple, only requiring cooked rice, tea, a little salt and some ingredients. If you have interests, you may have to try at home!