Japan 2026

 Today was probably the only one on the culinary trip where the sights were the main attraction.  Our first stop was the Golden Temple which was burned sometime in the 50’s by a crazy monk who was trying to commit suicide.  It was rebuilt from the ground up and remains a shiny gold temple visited by most visitors to Kyoto. Next we stopped at a rock garden.  This has to do with Zen ideals with the rocks strategically placed in groomed gravel.  People sit and contemplate life in these very meditatively gardens. Finally we went to the bamboo forest where these tall, then trees line a wide walkway filled with tourists.  They are very beautiful when you are among a forest of them not be overshadowed by other trees.  The nearby shrine offers a vegetarian restaurant that’s meant to give a view into how monks eat.  However we were eating a much bigger variety of foods than the typical monks’ meal and we found it to be delicious.   We had a break for ...

 I feel like this trip could have been called the koji trail in 9 easy days. Koji serves as the base for so many Japanese foods such as soy sauce and miso.  It’s made by inoculating soybeans or grains with a specific type of mold.  The mold can be found at a spore shop. Don’t think of a fancy store where they offer you spore samples while sipping warm tea.  Think of it more like a back alley drug deal with a walk up window where you need to know exactly what you’re asking for.  We visited probably the only one in Kyoto and bought little bags of something I’m sure what I will do with except maybe poison someone. For lunch we went to a pickle shop.  In the US pickles are usually made using some sort of vinegar but that’s not how it’s done in Japan.  Here the pickles are fermented using salt and koji so it has live bacteria which has been found to be healthy for your gut.  While pickles was the focus for the lunch almost every meal we’ve had has incl...

 We headed out early this morning since we had a couple of stops before arriving in Kyoto today.  Our focus would be tea, both the cultivating and the drinking. Our first stop was at an organic tea farm.  We first learned about tea and what distinguishes one from another.  I always assumed that there were different varieties of tea plants but this is not the case.  A combination of which leaves are harvested and how fast the tea is roasted leads to the varieties that we see.  The top three leaves of new growth are the imperial pluck and is used for green, matcha and oolong.  Tea begins to oxidize as soon as it is picked so the length of time between picking and roasting takes the tea from green (processed soon after picking) to black.   After our education session we went out into the fields to pick tea.  Today we were picking the light green leaves just below the top three leaves to make bancha tea.  We spent about 20 minutes gathering ...