Per Oscar Brekell

One should always be mildly suspicious of books written by foreigners about aspects of Japanese culture but, frequently, they are the only source of "potted" information available in English. I rather think that Per Oscar has done a fairly good job in this particular case. It's mildly technical but with lots of pictures. Writing style is easy to follow (despite English not being his first language ....though he does acknowledge help in this respect) and I really liked his descriptions of the various types of tea and the tea growing regions of Japan. One of my favourite teas is Genmai which is a green tea with roasted rice grains added and there seemed to be no coverage of this ...despite its popularity. I was also somewhat surprised at the coverage of a whole range of new varieties of tea released by the Shizuoka Tea Research Centre and its companion organisations. Are these really widespread when they have been released relatively recently? Or has he been over-influenced by his recent internship in these institutions? Hard for a non expert to know. It's a small book but he managed to cover: the history of tea growing and consumption in Japan, types of tea and varieties of tea and the various "refining" techniques used; the tea growing regions of Japan; making tea and steeping times, and teapots of various kinds. So a reasonably comprehensive coverage in a small book. Personally, I would have liked a bit more on the chemistry of the tea compounds and the effect of temperature etc on these chemicals but I can understand that this would probably drop readership by about 30%.
Anyway, I found it quite a useful book and it's inspired me to try and visit some of the areas which are close to where my wife's family comes from....but we've never visited. I give it four stars.… (mehr)