Our Healthy Gift Recommendation

Holiday season is coming soon! Are you looking for healthy gift idea for your loved ones? We have an excellent suggestion.

"Healthy Green Tea Gift"

It surely pleases tea lovers of any ages. In Japan, we have a variety of gift-giving occasions, and green tea is one of the most major gift for any generation. Today, a lot of people in the U.S. recognize health benefits green tea offers and start drinking green tea. This is the best timing to ask your loved ones to start healthy life. The following is our suggestion for you.

Gift set of 3 varieties of traditional Japanese green tea leaves
Set of Sen cha, Hoji cha, and Genmai cha tea leaves. If your friends or family are tea lovers who have tea pots, this tea leaves gift will be the perfect gift for them.

Gift set of 3 varieties of traditional Japanese green tea TeaPac
If your friends or family just start drinking green tea for their health, this TeaPac gift will be the perfect gift for them.

TOKONAME Tea Pot "Cherry Blossom"
Not so many people have a traditional tea pot specially design for Japanese green tea. This will be very special gift not only for the person who just start drinking green tea, but for the person enjoying tea daily.


There are a lot more healthy gifts suggested in our website. Choose the best gift for your family, friends, and loved ones and spend healthy holiday season.

Northwest Tea Festival 2008

Northwest Tea Festival was held for the first time ever to provide Northwest people with educational opportunities regarding to a variety of teas. I'm very proud that we could participate to the event as a representative of Japanese green tea companies. In spite of bad weather, there were so many visitors; one of the organizers said the number of visitors was more than double of what they had expected. I'm very happy that there are so many tea fans in this Northwest area.

This event was established to provide people with information or education regarding to teas from all over the world, not for business purpose. On the 1st day, I had a presentation about Japanese green tea and was so surprised that many people were very knowledgeable about teas. During my presentation, some of the audience asked me questions, and their questions were very sophisticated.

This event gave me a special encounter with Mr. James Norwood Pratt, who was one of the judges of World Tea Championship. Because we displaied the torophy of the World Tea Championship, he told us he was one of the judges. I had a great time to talk with him.

JapanFest Atlanta 2008

This was our first time to participate to the JapanFest Atlanta, and I was so surprised that so many people were interested in Japanese culture and visited to the event. In Seattle, we have similar Japanese cultural events such as Cherry Blossom Festival and Aki Matsuri (Autumn Festival), but JapanFest Atlanta was much much bigger than these events. In addition, people in Atlanta were facing to the gasoline shortage, and many of gasoline stations closed during the event. In spite of the unusual situation, more than 14,000 people visited from not only Georgia state, but also from other neighbor states.

In 2nd day, I had a 30-minute presentation about "How to enjoy the Japanese green tea." I hadn't expected so many people came to listen to my presentation. I was very happy and excited more and more people in the U.S. started drinking green tea and study about the tea. I hope my presentation could provide the audience with a little bit ideas of enjoyment of Japanese green tea.

Coffee Fest Seattle 2008

Coffee Fest Seattle was held at Washington Convention Center from September 12 to 14. We, SA Japanese Green Tea, had a booth and introduced traditional Japanese green tea.

Because the main focus of this show was COFFEE, there were many coffee companies and we were one of a few companies exhibiting only teas. We provide people with free samples of iced green tea, and all of our teas received many positive comments and feedback from potential customers. Especially, many people liked our Genmai cha. During the show, we came to be much confident that our teas would be liked by American consumers.

At the show, there was "latte art championship." And most impressively, the winner was Japanese barista, Hiroshi Sawada!!!! There were many American baristas competing in the championship, and I'm very proud of him as Japanese. Congratulation Hiroshi!

Seattle Gift Show 2008

Seattle Gift Show 08 was held from September 16 to 19. This was our first time to exhibit for any gift show, so there were many things we could discovered at the show. How to display products effectively or how to behave at the booth so that we can get attention from attendees. These questions were always in my mind during the show.

The most impressive thing was how other exhibitors established relationship with their customers. Because many of exhibitors have participated this show for many years, there were a lot of attendees who just came to see their favorite companies' products. For example, McSteven's Inc. They just sold cocoa or hot chocolate, but I was so surprised when I saw many customers made a line and were waiting to be helped. WHY? They said " this is our back yard, we have come this show for many many years."

I decide to participate the Seattle Gift Show next year, too. And I hope my company can establish good and solid relationship with customers, just like McSteven's.

Tea Tasting at I Love Sushi Restaurant

Since the beginning of July, I have been doing the free tea sampling event at the I Love Sushi at Lake Bellevue in Washington state. Every Monday and Wednesday, I go to the restaurant from 6pm and serve 3 kinds of tea samples - Sen cha, Hoji cha, and Genmai cha.

During summer, I'm serving iced green teas, and customers really love their refreshing taste. Especially, iced Genmai cha has received a lot of compliments (Genmai cha is the one selected as the best tea at the World Tea Championship). If you are interested in trying our teas, please visit I Love Sushi Lake Bellevue.

At the end, I'd like to mention about I Love Sushi. Honestly, I Love Sushi is really nice restaurant. It has a wide menu variety and abundant of alcohol selection. Outside view is nice as well. Most importantly, their passion for quality cuisine and customer service is great. If you would like to experience the real Japanese culinary, I strongly recommend I LOVE SUSHI.

For more information about the tea sampling event or I Love Sushi, please visit;

http://lakebellevue.ilovesushi.com/event072008.htm

Intangible National Treasure - TEMOMI

If you would like to try the ancient taste of teas, "Temomi-cha" tea is your choice. Temomi means "hand kneading," and cha means "tea" in Japanese. In short, Temomi-cha can be said that is the 100% hand-made green tea. Its taste and flavor are completely different from teas now we are drinking; it has really deep taste and green flavor. When the Sen cha was invented about 300 years ago, all the process to make the tea was taken by humans' hands. It started from hand pick of tea leaves, and then steaming, kneading, and drying process were performed only by hands. Today, all of these processes are mechanized and the Temomi-technique is almost forgotten.

My mother has striven to preserve the Temomi-technique since 1995. Right now, she has a teaching license and has held the Temomi-cha event for public since 2005. The pictures above are the Temomi-cha event held on May 2008 at my father's factory. I was very sad that I couldn't participate the event this year because I wan in the U.S.

In near future, I'm going to import the Temomi-cha into the U.S. I'd like to have a chance to introduce the Temomi-cha to American audience.