June 25, 2020 • 45 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, it's Josh and Chuck your friends, and we
are here to tell you about our upcoming book that's
coming out this fall, the first ever Stuff you Should
Know book, Chuck. That's right. What's the cool, super cool
title we came up with. It's Stuff you Should Know colon,
an incomplete compendium of mostly interesting things. That's right, and
(00:20):
it's coming along so great. We're super excited, you guys.
The illustrations are amazing, and there's the look of the book.
It's all just it's exactly what we hoped it would be.
And we cannot wait for you to get your hands
on it. Yes, we can't. Um, and you don't have
to wait. Actually, well you do have to wait, but
you don't have to wait to order. You can go
preorder the book right now everywhere you get books, and
(00:42):
you will eventually get a special gift for preordering, which
we're working on right now. That's right, So check it
out soon coming this fall. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know,
a production of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Yeah, hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck
(01:05):
and we are Macha Macha man. We are some Macha man.
And Jerry's out there too. That's very cute. You mean's
um iTunes? I guess on her phone is stuck on
Macho Man like anytime she plugs it in the car,
(01:26):
that's what comes up. I guess the deal with that?
What like that? At the same first song starts off
and it varies. It's annoying. I don't know what it is,
but that's the way it is. Because Tim Cook said so.
By the way, if I may here at the beginning,
I joined Instagram finally because of that Gwyneth Paltrow. Thank
(01:48):
what or is this totally unrelated to machaly related? Okay, well, welcome.
Do you thought I joined Instagram because of Gwyneth Paltrow.
I thought that this was a segue into the Macha episod. No.
I just finally got on Instagram because I loathe Facebook.
And the only thing I will do on Facebook now
is I do not pass go. I go straight to
(02:10):
movie Crush and movie Crushers, which is a great community
of really awesome people. Um it's a little wonderful corner
of Facebook that's not snarky and fun and supportive and
movie talk mostly. But I finally got on Instagram because
everyone was like, dude, you just get on Instagram because
it's not like that, even though Facebook on Instagram. Um,
(02:33):
and so I did. So if you want to follow me,
you can find me at Chuck the Podcaster. I thought
there was That was a pregnant pause. Check. I'm I'm
gonna say mine too. I'm at josh um Clark. Yeah,
it's you know, I'm I'm posting a few personal pictures.
(02:54):
I'm posting some movie crush stuff and these shirtless ones.
Not yet, I'm posting some you know, I've always kind
of considered myself an amateur photographers with just things I
find beautiful or funny or fun or interesting. U um,
not a ton of stuff, but you know, I'm there now.
It sounds like you've got it all figured out, Chuck.
(03:16):
How many followers do you have? How many do I
need to beat? I think I'm at about I think twenty.
You'll make it today. I'll never make it there, you
will to. I think I'm at about that, and it's
kind of good little crew going. Um, what kind of
stuff I need to follow? Better? Uh? Post some momo pictures? Um?
(03:38):
What else do I postmo pictures? Pictures of me with food, um, pictures,
that kind of stuff, you know, the usual Instagram stuff.
I don't know how personal to get as as much
as you want to be. I mean, if you do
like confessional videos where you're crying, it might freak people
(03:59):
out a little bit. Oh can you do video? Oh yeah? Okay,
Well you are new, aren't you. I think I might
just keep it very basic and just do the old.
Here's a picture, okay, okay. I predict that that will
change eventually, you think, cut to me crying. I'm gonna
go follow you right now. I'm at seven point nine
by the way. Oh wow, chuck the podcast or go ahead.
(04:24):
I haven't announced it yet, so don't make fun of
my numbers. I'm following. You probably got no more than
a couple of hundred. Uh you've got that's pretty good.
Not bad pre announcement. Well, yes, that is not bad
at all. Wow. So the reason I thought let me
do this, okay, because I have some explaining to do.
(04:45):
The reason I thought you were talking about Gwyneth Paltrow
is because Gwyneth Paltrow is the person that the current
um deep and abiding love for all things macha that
a mayor has Gwyneth Paltrow is the person that is
chalked up. Is kicking that off back in two thousand fifteen,
(05:05):
did you know that? Yeah, they lay it at her feet.
Is that fair because I feel it's not at all fair. Yeah.
I feel like the mucha um sort of hipster macha
boom happened before that. But I think what they're saying
is like she popularized it and it was no longer
just relegated to hipsters because you know, hipsters are so rare.
They're rare creatures and they don't have much much reach
(05:28):
in the popular culture. It takes a Gwyneth Paltrow to
really spread an idea these days, Thank God for her.
But there was a post that she made back in
two thousand and fifteen that says that um oh, chilot
chill late h A l A I T Yeah, chill
late Macho Latte was a dreamy new discovery on Instagram
(05:51):
and that apparently made people go start drinking macha because
she discovered in an eleventh century tee powder. That's right.
Good for her. I'm glad we're doing this because first
of all, I love macha. Yeah, I do too, and
I think I got into it. I've fallen out of it,
(06:11):
but this made me buy some more that I bought
online as being shipped now as we speak. Oh yeah,
so I got out of it a little for a
little while. I guess maybe because I can't go to
my little Japanese store and get it in person. But um,
what kicked off my love of Macha was my friend
p J and Los Angeles. So it was a while ago,
(06:35):
and then I was reminded from the uh watching Top
Chef the other night they did. They had a you
know how much I love that show. They had a
a challenge where it was they had to prepare a
traditional Japanese kaiseki, which is a progressive taste, not not
quite a tasting, men you, but a progressive dinner, formal dinner,
(06:57):
which is very much reminded me of the Macha formal
tea ceremony, right, which we'll talk about, But I just
want to say that I think it would be deliciously
ironic if you learned about Macha from PJ, and PJ
learned about it from Gwyneth Paltrow's Instagram. This is way
pre two thousand fifteen, So, um, what about Macha everything, Chuck,
(07:21):
what about Macha kickcats? Are they your favorite kickcat flavor?
Did not care for those? Uh? I had had them? Yeah,
did not like him at all. Do you have Have
you had like a good macha latte from Starbucks? Have
not had a match a latte? It's pretty good. I
think it's just like macha tea. So you like the
traditional macha powder and hot water stirred together, there's your tea. Yeah, great,
(07:46):
I mean that's the that's the purest approach there is.
And that's like what you said, people have been drinking
that since like the eleventh century. Yeah, or added to
um like it just a regular steeped green tea might
add a little dash of macha, or to a smoothie,
which I had a smoothe almost every morning. Yes, okay,
So there's a lot of different ways that you can
(08:08):
enjoy macha. And I think, ye know, we're about to
I think we should also say that we're not invested
in any kind of macha outfit or anything like that,
because we're talking it up a bit like we are,
like we're in the midst of a pumping up scheme
or something like that. We're just fans, right, match is
just great. So um, we should say, like you're saying,
(08:28):
macha is t but it's t empowdered form, and it's
specifically a very um distinct type of tea grown in
a very distinct way and processed in a distinct way,
and that it's really unlike any other kind of tea,
so much so that it's a really weird thing if
(08:49):
you think about it. But then it's an also a
very delightful and calming, soothing thing to to learn about.
Two I found yeah and big thanks to how stuff
Works dot com, Maurice he hunt uh, the American Specialty
t Alliance and then this great article on a good
and proper from Emily Holmes. Help help me out for
this one. But yeah, so the macha is the these
(09:11):
tea leaves that have been steamed then dried, and then
you get those stems out and you want, yeah, the
seeds now, stems and seeds, that's the rule. You don't
want any any swag tea. So you get that stuff
out of there, and then you grind that stuff into
(09:32):
a fine powder. And we'll talk about the different places
where it's grown, but and then about the history. But
what you end up with is this ideally very bright
bright chlorophyll green powder almost neon green. Yeah, if it's
you know, the good stuff, right, Yeah, the greener the
the greener, the brighter that the almost day glory, it
(09:54):
is usually the better the actual macha is. And we'll
see exactly why. But somewhere along the way about the
eleventh century, UM or the twelfth century, I guess it
would be UM. I think back in the Japanese imported
this idea from the Chinese, and we it's weird to
(10:19):
think like there was a point in time where they're like, Okay,
we're gonna start powdering teeth from this process, and then
this will be go on to become macha. Were up
to that. Nobody made tea like that. They made tea
like you would think they grew tea. They kind of
packed it into cakes or bricks, and they sold it
like that, and you would steep it and you would
(10:39):
drink the liquor is what they call it, um, and
you would remove the tea leaves. That's not at all
what matches. Matches straight up ground powdered tea leaves, and
you're drinking the tea itself, not like steep tea. That's
that's come out of the tea and you're throwing the
tea leaves away. You're drinking the whole kitten caboodle, as
they say Japan, which is why there are so many
(11:00):
great health benefits which we'll get to. Uh. Yeah, there
was a well, first of all, it's in Japanese mott
means powdered and cha means tea, so being bad a
boom macha powdered tea. But there was a zen monk
name uh s I, I believe, so okay, who brought
(11:21):
these tea seeds after going on a trip to China.
And I think this is the person who in started
what I say, sorry, it was seven years uh started
cultivating this stuff and then had a pupil. And this
this stuff was very popular with the monks because they
(11:42):
could get caffeine loaded and stay up all night and pray.
But I had a pupil name Mioi, who was a
Buddhist monk there in the mountains northwest of Kyoto. And
I think this is the person that really took this
cultivation seriously and started to sort of make it a
larger scale operation. Yeah. Um, the Buddhist temple that Mioe
(12:06):
lived at I think was in charge of it's called
kozon g on the Tonga No Mountain. I checked with
you me. I was like, do you say both those?
And she said yeah, And I practiced and it's not
coming out right, But Taga No Mountain m outside of
Kyoto and um mioe just so happened where where he lived,
(12:29):
where he started planting this tea had these incredible, like
um natural conditions that just so happened to come together
that that produced exactly the kind of tea leaf that
you would want for macha. But it's it was just
a basically a freak of nature that it happened that way. Yeah,
(12:49):
He's like, you know, we got this great soil, super
fertile um, we have this morning dew that comes in
because of the river nearby, and that that really rest
on those tee eaves and just makes it all pop
with chlorophyll. And it became more popular. And as it
became more popular, it was the third show gun of
(13:09):
the Ashikaga Shogunate, and his name was Ashikaga Yoshi. Meet
Sue Beautiful. I love Japanese. Well it's wonderful, isn't it. Yeah,
there's something about it. It just appeals to my eyeballs,
and it's appeals to my tongue when I can manage
to get it out of my mouth correctly. There's just
(13:31):
something about it. I really like it. But um, he's
the one that said, all right, we gotta get more
of this stuff and fast because people love this macha.
So uh, let's get it going here in the Uji
era era area right outside of Kyoto. So it was
originally just on Tokenah Mountain and then it was expanded
(13:52):
to a wider area and it was there when they
expanded to Uji, and Uji is now like the place
where you get the world's greatest ma chu, they decided.
But at first the tea that they were starting to
produce an Uji when they first expanded it. Um, but
they were like, this is this is not nearly as
good as as the stuff that they're making over there
on Taga Mountain right um And they could not figure
(14:16):
out why. And then they went back and they looked
and they realized that on the mountain there was a
lot of forests that was naturally shading these tea bushes,
and that that was the big difference. Than they started
to study it more and more and more, and they
realized that they could kind of mimic this forest shading it,
and that if they did this at at certain amounts
(14:37):
or certain certain times during the growing season, um, they
could actually force the tea to produce exactly the kind
of leaves that they would want to um to turn
into macha because it takes a very specific kind of
um growth pattern and it's just so beautiful and zen
especially because these were zen monks who were figuring this out.
(15:01):
But it's just like this like delicately manipulating the plant
to get it to do what you want so you
can get the most remarkable leaves to use for macha.
I just find it seriously, Like when I was researching
this and studying this, I was just so much just
it was just calm and like really soothing, you know. Yeah.
(15:25):
I don't think we said with the name of it,
but it's called tincha before it becomes much much as
that final ground up powder. Yeah, everything leading up to
that is is like you said, tencha. So technically you
don't grow macha. So we'll talk about exactly how it's
cultivated later, but the upshot of it is that by
noticing that the forest around these um. These plants shaded them,
(15:49):
they figured out how to simulate it by building structures
around them, and what they've come up with finally, in
Uji is what you would call ceremonial grade pacha. Yeah,
and you know what, I looked that up and saw
a couple of things. I saw that ceremonial grade UM
was used to be reserved for royalty, and that it's
(16:11):
the you know, kind of the best stuff out there
as opposed to culinary grade, which you cook with. But
then I also saw other places that said that's sort
of a tag you can't even trust anymore, that's sort
of thrown on there for Americans. So I don't really
know what to believe. I do know that UM, like
a high quality Japanese macha, is not cheap, so that's
(16:33):
that can always be a decent guide if you're online
trying to buy some. If you see something super cheap,
it's probably not great. But there are four regions in
Japan where it's produced Uji, uh Fukuoka, Nishio, and Shizuoka,
and Uji is the most renowned. Obviously. The article from
Eater that I saw said it's sort of like seeing
(16:56):
Bordeaux on a wine label the net. The best would
be uh Fukuoka, which is on the island of Kyushu,
and they're sort of newer in the last like ten
to twenty years, but apparently are putting out some really
really good stuff. Uh Nicio is the largest by volume
(17:17):
of macha uh and they're sort of the more mass
market style and if you get that in the US,
it's not going to be very good apparently. And then
the last one is the Shizuoka, and they're the largest
producer of all green tea by volume, and it's not
very well regarded as like really good macha. So go
for that Uji or go for the Fukuoka if you
(17:38):
want the good stuff. Um So, I say we take
a break and then we'll come back and talk about
maybe the tea ceremony. How about that? Yes, let's take
a break. Okay, okay, chuck. So apparently ceremonial grade is
(18:13):
totally made up. But if you were going to I
don't think it's necessarily true. But I could Okay, I
could see people abusing that. How about that? Now I
could see non non Japanese retailers abusing that. How that? So?
Um But if you went to a tea ceremony um,
(18:34):
that would if if there is such a thing as
ceremonial grade, that probably would be the kind of tea
that they would serve you, and ceremonial grade tea, or
I should say that the tea ceremony um is called
the Chotto, which means the way of tea, because again
chaw means tea and dough means way, So this is
like the way of tea. And just the name of it,
(18:56):
of the tea ceremony being called that kind of gets
you this idea that there's like a zen vibe to it.
And their most decidedly is oh yeah, like if you
just watch one of these, it's just super calming. Everything.
It's sort of like that formal meal I was talking about.
Everything is just very exact and purposeful. Um, yeah, those
(19:19):
are the two words. Exact and purposeful is what it's
all about. You're not You're not just throwing tea around.
I mean everything from the folding of the napkin to
how you sit, it's all just very much planned out,
and uh, it's just super relaxing to be a part of.
I think it really is. I was talking to you
me about it because she she was trained in it
um and she said, it's super stressful while you're learning
(19:41):
because every single step in, every single hand movement, every
sound that the that you make, like the the whisk
clinking up against the bowl, um, all those things are
meant to to be a certain way, and so much
so that there's like different schools that do the the
ceremony slightly differently. But the ultimate point of the whole
(20:02):
thing is that it's meant to draw you into the moment.
It's meant to be a really meditative experience, not just
for you, the person making tea, but the person who's
being served tea. And it's it's um it is when
like you were saying, when you watch one of these
things there there's plenty of them on YouTube, it's real quiet,
really silent, and it's really meditative, even just to watch
(20:23):
a video of. But it's it's cool the idea that
there's this whole process planned out and that it's meant
to make you observe the moment. It also really shows
you how um this this whole thing has its roots
and Zen Buddhism, green tea does or macha. Yeah, even
the white lady in San Francisco, and that video you
(20:44):
sent me was relaxing. It was. But then did you
see the with the French one too, And that was
just like I was like in my chair drooling while
that one was going on because it was just totally quiet.
But when you watch a tea ceremony, you see that
that there's a specific way that you're supposed to to
um produce to make green tea, like the way that
(21:05):
you drink it macha um where it's just powder and
hot water mixed together and then there's your tea. But
then so you're supposed to use two scoops. If you've
ever seen like one of those little bamboo hook skewer
kind of things, it's called a cho shooka yeah, chuku
(21:25):
okay um. Those are equal to about a third of
a teaspoon, and you want two of those, so roughly
half a teaspoon if you don't have one of the
bamboo scoops for green tea. And then um, you put
in a little bit of water um and you stir
it together with the bamboo whisk until a froth forms
and then there you go. You've got your your macha prepared.
(21:46):
The traditional way, and you're supposed to drink in about
three SIPs from what I understand. Yeah, and it's um.
You know, you can get more detailed than that if
you want to. If you want to get out a
strainer to keep it from lumping up, you can do that. Um,
the water should be warm. You don't want to just
throw boiling water in there. Apparently anything over eighty degrees
(22:08):
will scorch it, and that will increase the bitterness. Unless
I don't know, you really like a bitter macha. I
guess that could be a a call you could make.
But there's a fine line. I think bitterness is a
part of macha to a certain degree, but it's not.
It shouldn't be the overriding characteristic. No, No, it's meant
(22:29):
to be balanced out by a sweetness because I mean macha.
It's like, if you've had tea but you've never had macha,
you you can't guess what macha tastes like just by
having had any other kind of tea before. It's got
its own flavor for sure. Yeah, I mean, green tea
will give give you a hint, like, if you really
like green tea, you'll probably like macha. But it's still
not quite the same thing. No, because the other thing
(22:49):
about macha too is it foams when you whisk it,
which um indicates that's got a mouth feel to it
that tea doesn't have. Like green tea is like tea.
The consistency of tea macha is almost like um creamy. Yeah,
it has a creamy ins to it, even though it's
just powdered tea. There's no cream in it, but it
has a creamy consistency to it too. It's basically magic
(23:12):
green potion from japan Land. Yeah, and it's differentiates. There's
another type of tea called hoji cha, which is um
reddish brown, and they get that from smoking it, So yeah,
it's a It has sort of a earthy, smoky aroma.
They both have that umami, those umami undertones um. But
(23:36):
the hoji chaw is not gonna be bitter because that
roasting process. I think I said smoking they actually roasted
um makes a little different. And I think hogi cha
doesn't have nearly as much caffeine as macha, much as
about three point two grams per grams of caffeine. It's
a lot of caffeine and hogias point one three if
(23:57):
that tells you anything, Holy cow, And it's three point
to wow. And again that's because you're drinking. You're drinking
the tea leaf itself, not just the liquor of the tea. Yeah.
But and I found this to be true. It's it's
not a it's not a super jittery caffeine. You know,
we'll talk about exactly why, but no, it's it's world
renowned because it's not a jittery caffeine feeling, even though
(24:20):
there's so much caffeine. It has what's called like an
alert um calmness or a calm wakefulness, something like that,
where it's like you're not jittery, but you're kind of
in the zone. Is how a lot of Westerners describe it. Yeah,
Like the samurai drank it for a reason because they
could they could meditate, but also know when someone was
fifty ft behind them with a sword, right, you know, right, yeah, exactly,
(24:44):
because they would sprout eyes in the back of their heads. Right.
The other thing, too, is I'm I don't want us
to make this sound exotic or unattainable, like people have
been drinking macha for a thousand years, more than a
thousand years now, or about a thousand years um. And
it's it's like it's powdered tea mixed with hot water
(25:08):
and then you drink it and it's wonderful. That's it. Like,
you don't have to have the ceremony. No, you don't
have to. There's a purpose to the ceremonies to take
time out from your busy life. But if you just
want some good macha, buy some good macha, get a
half of a table or a half of a teaspoon,
some warm water, stir it together and enjoy your matcha.
It doesn't have to be some You don't have to
(25:29):
be pretentious about it. No one does. And let's not
say the Japanese are pretentious about it, but just talking
about it like this can come off as pretentious, even
though it's not meant to be that way at all.
And I don't want to like scare anybody off or
make it sound like it's unattainable. It's super attainable, and
it's it's it's really beneficial to which is why I'm saying,
go try it if you haven't sure. I think it's
(25:51):
the same um sort of inaccessibility that some people might
feel about wine and a wine tasting can be intimidating
for people, or you know, if you go to a
place that has the pour over coffee and you know,
there are lots of different ways to skin the cat
and you can. You can, certainly, I mean, I think
Gwyneth Paltrow showed us that it was accessible right a
(26:12):
dreamy new discovery. She gooped it up for everyone. Yeah.
Uh and by the way, you said that to drink
it in the three slurbs. Apparently that last one is
when you turn that bowl fully up in sort of
the point of that is you're you're sort of in
that bowl with the t everything else is blocked out
around you because it's completely held up to your face.
(26:34):
Just savor that last that gulp and that last bit
of sereneness before you know, you get on Facebook and
talking about that's the That's that we didn't say. You're
supposed to traditionally drink it out of a t bowl
called called the chawan. And that's another thing too, Like
it's nothing to go to your local Japanese store and
say do you have stuff I need for macha and
(26:56):
they will say, here's the bamboo whisk, here's the bamboos
coop here's your T bowl, give us twelve dollars please.
It's not hard to get into it all, even in
the traditional ceremonial way. But it's, like you said, drinking
it out of that T bowl is it's a different
experience than just drinking out out of a mug, you know,
And it's meant to be that way. And there's you know,
(27:17):
you don't have to be pretentious about it, but there's
also something he said for honoring the tradition in whatever
way you feel comfortable doing. Yeah, because I mean, I
was reading about this um this morning drinking coffee and
I'm like, Macha and the experience of mant is basically
the opposite of coffee. Yeah, there's not It's not meant
(27:37):
to be like go go, go, let's go, let's get
the day started, right exactly. It's meant to be like,
let's take some time out of that day and just
like reflect and chill out for a minute, but get
a little buzz going. Yeah exactly, you can have it all.
So one we kind of like just glanced over the
fact that like Macha has grown in a really unusual way.
(28:00):
I feel like we should talk about that a little bit.
You want to yes okay so um. When they figured
out that there was a uh that the forest shading
the tea bushes were doing something special to it. When
they started growing at an Uji and the macha they produced,
or the tencha I should say, um wasn't nearly as good. Um,
(28:21):
they started really studying what was going on, and they
figured out that if you deprive the tea of the
tea bush of light at certain times and in certain amounts,
the tea bush will respond by producing exactly the kind
of leaves that you want to turn into macha. Eventually,
that's right, you're affecting the light cycle. Uh. And you
(28:44):
start this in about mid April. Then they figured out
what you do is you just build a little covering,
a little hut over these bushes, and you can apply straw,
more or less straw to allow more or less light
in to the bush. And around mid April you cut
that light down by about sixty to sevent and then
(29:06):
I think ten or twelve days after that you cut
it down almost a darkness to And that's sort of
where you get your good money chlorophyll and macha going on, right,
And so I mean, what's neat though, is like, we
can explain this now, but these guys figured this out centuries,
almost a thousand years ago, how to do this. But
now we understand that two things that give macha it's
(29:29):
sweet taste and it's bitter taste, or theonine and catkins.
There are two different compounds that are found in green
tea and macha um and theonine gives it its sweet flavor.
Catakians give it it's bitter flavor, and that through photosynthesis,
theonins become catkins. So if you can keep the plant
(29:50):
from photosynthesizing as much, there's fewer theonins that are going
to be turned into the bitter catkins. So that's one
reason you're depriving it of light. It's a pretty big step.
The other step, Chuck, is that they figured out that
chlorophyll is related to the amount of theenins. I don't
know if one produces the other or what, but they're
they're related to one another. So the more chlorophyll there is,
(30:13):
the more theenans are going to be. Hence the sweeter
the match is going to be. And that if you
deprive the tea bush of light, it's going to produce
more chlorophyll. To try to carry out photosynthesis. So not
only does it's it's color get greener, um, it produces
more theenans as a result. So by depriving it of
light at certain times and then using the tea bush,
(30:37):
that's um that comes out of like winter and has
like a bunch of nutrients packed down in its roots
and it's now sharing them with the the young buds um.
And that's what you harvest is the first leaves of spring.
That's how you get the tension that will turn into
the best kind of macha. Yeah, and you also get
those good the leaves get wider, you get those broad
(30:57):
leaves because they're seeking out the light they're not getting.
It's actually very cruel. I thought about that too. I
was like, the Japanese know how to torture some plants.
Between this and bonds eye, you know, yeah, it reminded
me of the marijuana podcast to the cultivation one, because
that's um. It's another plant that you know, you can
just throw a seed in the ground and grow tea
or grow marijuana and not worry about it because it's
(31:20):
just a plant. But if you alter the light cycles, Uh,
they both do something extraordinary. In the case of marijuana.
I believe altering the light cycles is what causes it
to bud at specific times. And it's kind of really
similar with the macha. It's kind of the same process.
So with marijuana, is it kind of like you're you're
making it think like the days are getting shorter and
(31:42):
so it needs to start budding or they think so longer. Okay,
I got to say, you're artificially manipulating what would naturally
play out over probably a longer period of time. Is
my is my guess grow marijuana. But I'm just kidding, right,
You're like there was a high times at my dentists.
That's ababily about right. Um. So, yeah, so they figured
(32:03):
all this out, like to do this with tea, and
they started out by by adding like little bamboo or
reed covers to deprive some light, and then they would
put straw mats over that. Now they use aluminum structures
around the bushes, and then they use just kind of
that black cheesecloth fabric that you see to like, um,
(32:24):
sometimes people put it down to keep weeds from growing
up in the right exactly, that's exactly what it's called.
Now they use that to cover up the the tea bushes.
They've got it down kind of pat but it's remarkably
similar to the same techniques they've been using since the century. Yeah,
(32:44):
I mean, you know, they made the switch to aluminum
because they would have to take these wooden frames out
and care for them in the off season, and um,
I think the same holds true with the straw. I'm
sure there are probably some traditionalists that are doing it
in the old way, but yeah, aluminum in landscape fabric
is sort of the modern version. Have you ever smelled
(33:05):
musty straw? It's not a good smell. M M. I
believe I've been on a hay Rider two. Is that
what you mean? Yes? Yeah, basically, but when you make
it something out of straw, like a something to cover
over shrubs with or whatever you should be out in
the rain, roll it back up, Oh yeah, yeah, it's
not a good smell when you unroll it again. Yeah. Like,
(33:26):
if you have a straw hat that falls in a
body of water, it's never gonna be the same again.
Has that happened to you, Tom Sawyer? Yeah? Emily, I
mean Emily has. He's she's a gardener, so she has
these huge straw hats okay, and if they get wet,
they get kind of stinky. You're right, Um, So you
want to take another break and then we'll talk about
health benefits of macha. Okay, We're going to do that everybody,
(33:49):
and we'll be right back. So I think we should
(34:13):
say chuck before we get before we get into the
health benefits. Um. When when tencha is produced, apparently all
of it is brought to one market in Kyoto. Um.
And Kyoto is like one of the greatest cities on
the entire planet. And it's just perfect that they have.
(34:34):
The macho market is in Kyoto, and people go there
and say, I really like this leaf, and I'm going
to buy your entire stock. Yeah, they have an auction.
It's amazing that they do this this way. They have
an auction. Uh. I think once a year at the
Kyoto Tea market, which opened in seventy four. And I'm
(34:58):
getting all my centuries wrong, but this was four and uh.
Like you said, these wholesalers and vendors they come in
and they do blind tastings, which is really cool. So
you can't say, like, you know, you're just not acquainted
with the brand before you taste it. Because every year
is going to be a little different, even if you're
trying to produce a consistent product here over year. You know,
(35:19):
every year brings a little different thing, just like the
wine business. So they go in there, they blind taste
the stuff and they're looking for kind of uh, you know,
you end up mixing these things together to get your
matcha at the end you I had no idea, did you. Yeah?
I think I've heard that that it's not just one
kind of tea leaf. You want a variation for fragrance,
(35:39):
for flavor, and for color. And these tea masters pick
this raw attention leaf um blindly and just say, hey,
this is what I'm looking for and looking for this one,
and I'm looking for this one, and I'm gonna get
all three of those, and I'm gonna bid on them
at this auction and then dry it up, stone grind
that junk into good, good green powder, magical Japanese powder. Yeah,
(36:05):
and then blended together and there Drmancha pal. Yeah, that's
the slogan. So the reason we keep calling this magic
powder is not just because of the ceremony and like
the whole zen vibe that it has to It definitely
has all that um but it it is verging on
magical as far as the health benefits that it bestows
(36:28):
on humans goes. At the very least, it is very
clearly qualifies as a super food. If there is such
a thing as a super food, green tea and specifically
macha definitely is that. Yeah, and you talked already about
the the anine a little bit. Um. They've been using
(36:48):
this in Japan and China for a stress remedy for thousands,
literally thousands of years. They say that it can help
with aging, um, with memory and recall. Apparently, if you
drink uh, gentlemen, if you drink five to seven cups
of macha day, you can really reduce your chances of
(37:09):
prostate cancer. That's what they say. Yeah, and and um,
and all green tea is good for you, we should
point out, but this is just like on steroids. Yeah,
that's the thing. Like macha is green tea. But most
of the time when you drink green tea, again, you're
steeping green tea leaves and you're not actually ingesting the
leaves themselves with maucha powder. You are, And so you're
(37:31):
getting exponentially more of this stuff, including the anine, including
the catkins um, including something called uh epic gallo catekin galit,
which is um been shown to improve memory mood along
with althenin. And then one of the other things is
these cateakins are antioxidants, Chuck, which I know you're kind
(37:55):
of chomping at the big to give a bit of
an overview of how antioxidants how help us um combat disease. Backstory,
we were poking fun at each other because you sent
me a thing, a primer on antioxidants. It's like, this
is like the fifth or sixth time we've probably given
an overview of antioxidants. Right, But but out of that
back and forth, we agreed to finally do an episode
(38:17):
on antioxidants in aging? Right? Did we agree? I suggested it.
I just assumed that you didn't respond that you were agreeing. No, No,
we should do that, and then we'll never talk about
it again. Right. I can't guarantee that, no, but that
that may be the last overview. So this may be
the last overview, how about that? Okay? Sure? So in
your body you have something that are called free radicals,
(38:39):
which is a type of molecule that UM have an
extra electron or missing an electron either way, they like
to go around and bind other stuff, and when they
do that, something called oxidation occurs in your body. Right,
an oxidation could be good UM in that like you
might have a pathogen floating around your body. These free
radicals UM, which are naturally occurring, can bind to these
(39:03):
pathogens and neutralize them, and you don't get sick from
a pathogen, so it's good. The problem is is you
can have too many free radicals in your body, and
so when you're when you're out of balance you have
too many free radicals, you suffer what's called oxidative stress,
where the free radicals start attacking stuff you need like lipids, fats,
(39:25):
like d NA, like proteins in your body, and that's
not good. So you have antioxidants in your in your body,
but if you're not producing enough antioxidants, your free radicals
can get out of balance. And it's good to do
things like drink green tea, which introduces a ton of
antioxidants to your body, and then they seek out those
(39:45):
free radicals, they bind with them and neutralize them. But
the thing about antioxidants is they don't lose their stability
themselves when they bind it. They just keep on keeping on.
But now they also have this free radical attached for
a ride, and everything's all good. So that's why they
think that UM antioxidants are that kind of the key
to healthy aging, because when those free radicals start attacking
(40:08):
your DNA, it can lead to things like tumors and cancer,
I can lead to all sorts of other problems, breakdown
of cells and tissues, UM and just general disease. They
think like that is the basis of aging, is oxidative stress,
and antioxidants can counter that. And MACHA in particular is
lousy with antioxidants like catkins. Yeah, and macha I mean
(40:31):
is literally good for almost every organ in your body,
and it's certainly not bad for any of them. It
helps with your liver, I think we already mentioned the kidneys,
certainly the brain, UM and memory, and the combination of
that alfy anne and caffeine supposedly actually helps you multitask
and like to go back and forth between tasks more easily.
(40:52):
So uh, like we mentioned earlier, you're alert, but you're
still calm. It's it is a bit of a miracle.
Powder it is because that althening can cross the blood
brain barrier. So it goes right to your brain and
starts pushing it around like do this, do that. But
it works synergistically with caffeine and that it also releases GABBA,
(41:13):
which is a calming um I guess inhibitory molecule. I'm
not sure it works together with with um with caffeine,
so that like you were saying, like you have all
of the all of the focus, but none of the jitters.
It's just amazing stuff. It's great to mail. It fights
(41:34):
cancer and it puts you in the zone. Although be
aware of one thing if you if you like macha
with like a latte with milk, that milk binds with
antioxidants very easily, so it neutralizes a lot of the
antioxidant effect in Macha. Yeah, Emily said. I told her
that I was going to get some in it had
been a while, and she said something about making me
a Macha latte, and I was like, I don't think
(41:55):
I want that. I think it just either dump it
in a smoothie or or just make my tea. Okay,
it's worth trying though. It's very good. Maybe Okay, whatever
you want to do. I'm I just think it's top
notch that we're drinking much of these days, we're gonna
live to hud thirty forty maybe do you have it
every day? Do you drink much every day? No? I
(42:17):
don't drink nearly enough, Macha, but this has gotten me
back into it as well. I made a little bit,
had the little uh bamboo scoop the cha shako, and
I started making myself some and Yumi Soda is doing
so she came over and finished making it for me.
It was very sweet. She said, here's what you're doing wrong.
She said, move dummy, but she said in Japanese and
I was like, what do you say and she said nothing. Yeah,
(42:39):
well it sounded nice because it's right exactly. And then
I think we should finish with this great quote from
why it's so popular these days? Um? And who is
this from? This is from Anna Calls of Green Gables,
who is a health coach and co authored Macha Colon,
a lifestyle guide. She says, this, the kermit the frog
(43:01):
color just made it so instagrammable that that we have
gooped to thank for it. That's right. Uh, let's see,
that's it for Macha. Go back and um, maybe go
try it yourself. It's totally worth it. And we hope
you like it. Uh. And since I said that it's
time for a listener mail, I'm gonna call this my
(43:25):
tapeworm experience from Travis. Hey, guys, big fan of the show.
Loved the one on tape worms, and it gave me
flashbacks to my own experience. Four years ago. I was
working at a fishing lodge in Ontario, Canada. Had severe
gastro intestinal issues for several weeks over the summer, and
I visited a doctor and after a stool sample, discovered
I had a fully mature fish tapeworm inside of me.
(43:49):
It made for a pretty miserable summer. The doctor helped
me trace the timeline back to infection, and the likely
culprit was a batch of cevica that a guest had made.
Oh no, And for those of you listening to Vicha's
prepared by soaking fish in citrus juices overnight, essentially cooking it,
(44:10):
ideally cooking it, chemically cooking. I was to be just great.
Love it. Um. I was prescribed one pill to paralyze
the worm so it would release its hold and my
body could get rid of it. But I had to
wait in agonizing three days for the pill to arrive
due to my remote location. Nothing like knowing there's a
thirty inch tape worm inside of you, leaching away at
(44:30):
your bodies and nuturious. I can't imagine. Can you imagine
just a little bit? Like all right, three days? I
just got to know this about myself. I can't. I can't.
I don't know what I would do to numb that pain.
He said. It took a year of supplements to get
my weight back, and he lost twenty pounds and beat
twelve back to normal. Word of caution, the doctor told me,
if you plan to eat any raw fish, to make
(44:51):
sure it has a hard freeze for at least twenty
four hours to kill any tape worm eggs. A lesson
I will not soon forget. That is from Travis in Bend, Oregon. Man, Travis,
that was a cruel summer. Indeed, I'm glad you made
it out, though, buddy, Apparently it takes forever to get
(45:11):
stuff in Bend, Oregon. I didn't realize that. I think
he was not in Bend, Oregon at the time. Okay, yeah,
he was at a fishing lodge in Ontario, Canada. Okay, okay, okay, okay,
um great, well, thank you for that story that was
just magnificent. It really is a good accompaniment to the
actual episode two, don't you think If you want to
(45:32):
get in touch with this, like Travis did, you can
send us an email send it off to Stuff podcast
at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is
a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more
podcasts for my heart Radio is at the iHeart radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever he listened to your favorite shows.
Hey, everybody, it's Josh and Chuck your friends, and we
are here to tell you about our upcoming book that's
coming out this fall, the first ever Stuff you Should
Know book, Chuck. That's right. What's the cool, super cool
title we came up with. It's Stuff you Should Know colon,
an incomplete compendium of mostly interesting things. That's right, and
(00:20):
it's coming along so great. We're super excited, you guys.
The illustrations are amazing, and there's the look of the book.
It's all just it's exactly what we hoped it would be.
And we cannot wait for you to get your hands
on it. Yes, we can't. Um, and you don't have
to wait. Actually, well you do have to wait, but
you don't have to wait to order. You can go
preorder the book right now everywhere you get books, and
(00:42):
you will eventually get a special gift for preordering, which
we're working on right now. That's right, So check it
out soon coming this fall. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know,
a production of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Yeah, hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck
(01:05):
and we are Macha Macha man. We are some Macha man.
And Jerry's out there too. That's very cute. You mean's
um iTunes? I guess on her phone is stuck on
Macho Man like anytime she plugs it in the car,
(01:26):
that's what comes up. I guess the deal with that?
What like that? At the same first song starts off
and it varies. It's annoying. I don't know what it is,
but that's the way it is. Because Tim Cook said so.
By the way, if I may here at the beginning,
I joined Instagram finally because of that Gwyneth Paltrow. Thank
(01:48):
what or is this totally unrelated to machaly related? Okay, well, welcome.
Do you thought I joined Instagram because of Gwyneth Paltrow.
I thought that this was a segue into the Macha episod. No.
I just finally got on Instagram because I loathe Facebook.
And the only thing I will do on Facebook now
is I do not pass go. I go straight to
(02:10):
movie Crush and movie Crushers, which is a great community
of really awesome people. Um it's a little wonderful corner
of Facebook that's not snarky and fun and supportive and
movie talk mostly. But I finally got on Instagram because
everyone was like, dude, you just get on Instagram because
it's not like that, even though Facebook on Instagram. Um,
(02:33):
and so I did. So if you want to follow me,
you can find me at Chuck the Podcaster. I thought
there was That was a pregnant pause. Check. I'm I'm
gonna say mine too. I'm at josh um Clark. Yeah,
it's you know, I'm I'm posting a few personal pictures.
(02:54):
I'm posting some movie crush stuff and these shirtless ones.
Not yet, I'm posting some you know, I've always kind
of considered myself an amateur photographers with just things I
find beautiful or funny or fun or interesting. U um,
not a ton of stuff, but you know, I'm there now.
It sounds like you've got it all figured out, Chuck.
(03:16):
How many followers do you have? How many do I
need to beat? I think I'm at about I think twenty.
You'll make it today. I'll never make it there, you
will to. I think I'm at about that, and it's
kind of good little crew going. Um, what kind of
stuff I need to follow? Better? Uh? Post some momo pictures? Um?
(03:38):
What else do I postmo pictures? Pictures of me with food, um, pictures,
that kind of stuff, you know, the usual Instagram stuff.
I don't know how personal to get as as much
as you want to be. I mean, if you do
like confessional videos where you're crying, it might freak people
(03:59):
out a little bit. Oh can you do video? Oh yeah? Okay,
Well you are new, aren't you. I think I might
just keep it very basic and just do the old.
Here's a picture, okay, okay. I predict that that will
change eventually, you think, cut to me crying. I'm gonna
go follow you right now. I'm at seven point nine
by the way. Oh wow, chuck the podcast or go ahead.
(04:24):
I haven't announced it yet, so don't make fun of
my numbers. I'm following. You probably got no more than
a couple of hundred. Uh you've got that's pretty good.
Not bad pre announcement. Well, yes, that is not bad
at all. Wow. So the reason I thought let me
do this, okay, because I have some explaining to do.
(04:45):
The reason I thought you were talking about Gwyneth Paltrow
is because Gwyneth Paltrow is the person that the current
um deep and abiding love for all things macha that
a mayor has Gwyneth Paltrow is the person that is
chalked up. Is kicking that off back in two thousand fifteen,
(05:05):
did you know that? Yeah, they lay it at her feet.
Is that fair because I feel it's not at all fair. Yeah.
I feel like the mucha um sort of hipster macha
boom happened before that. But I think what they're saying
is like she popularized it and it was no longer
just relegated to hipsters because you know, hipsters are so rare.
They're rare creatures and they don't have much much reach
(05:28):
in the popular culture. It takes a Gwyneth Paltrow to
really spread an idea these days, Thank God for her.
But there was a post that she made back in
two thousand and fifteen that says that um oh, chilot
chill late h A l A I T Yeah, chill
late Macho Latte was a dreamy new discovery on Instagram
(05:51):
and that apparently made people go start drinking macha because
she discovered in an eleventh century tee powder. That's right.
Good for her. I'm glad we're doing this because first
of all, I love macha. Yeah, I do too, and
I think I got into it. I've fallen out of it,
(06:11):
but this made me buy some more that I bought
online as being shipped now as we speak. Oh yeah,
so I got out of it a little for a
little while. I guess maybe because I can't go to
my little Japanese store and get it in person. But um,
what kicked off my love of Macha was my friend
p J and Los Angeles. So it was a while ago,
(06:35):
and then I was reminded from the uh watching Top
Chef the other night they did. They had a you
know how much I love that show. They had a
a challenge where it was they had to prepare a
traditional Japanese kaiseki, which is a progressive taste, not not
quite a tasting, men you, but a progressive dinner, formal dinner,
(06:57):
which is very much reminded me of the Macha formal
tea ceremony, right, which we'll talk about, But I just
want to say that I think it would be deliciously
ironic if you learned about Macha from PJ, and PJ
learned about it from Gwyneth Paltrow's Instagram. This is way
pre two thousand fifteen, So, um, what about Macha everything, Chuck,
(07:21):
what about Macha kickcats? Are they your favorite kickcat flavor?
Did not care for those? Uh? I had had them? Yeah,
did not like him at all. Do you have Have
you had like a good macha latte from Starbucks? Have
not had a match a latte? It's pretty good. I
think it's just like macha tea. So you like the
traditional macha powder and hot water stirred together, there's your tea. Yeah, great,
(07:46):
I mean that's the that's the purest approach there is.
And that's like what you said, people have been drinking
that since like the eleventh century. Yeah, or added to
um like it just a regular steeped green tea might
add a little dash of macha, or to a smoothie,
which I had a smoothe almost every morning. Yes, okay,
So there's a lot of different ways that you can
(08:08):
enjoy macha. And I think, ye know, we're about to
I think we should also say that we're not invested
in any kind of macha outfit or anything like that,
because we're talking it up a bit like we are,
like we're in the midst of a pumping up scheme
or something like that. We're just fans, right, match is
just great. So um, we should say, like you're saying,
(08:28):
macha is t but it's t empowdered form, and it's
specifically a very um distinct type of tea grown in
a very distinct way and processed in a distinct way,
and that it's really unlike any other kind of tea,
so much so that it's a really weird thing if
(08:49):
you think about it. But then it's an also a
very delightful and calming, soothing thing to to learn about.
Two I found yeah and big thanks to how stuff
Works dot com, Maurice he hunt uh, the American Specialty
t Alliance and then this great article on a good
and proper from Emily Holmes. Help help me out for
this one. But yeah, so the macha is the these
(09:11):
tea leaves that have been steamed then dried, and then
you get those stems out and you want, yeah, the
seeds now, stems and seeds, that's the rule. You don't
want any any swag tea. So you get that stuff
out of there, and then you grind that stuff into
(09:32):
a fine powder. And we'll talk about the different places
where it's grown, but and then about the history. But
what you end up with is this ideally very bright
bright chlorophyll green powder almost neon green. Yeah, if it's
you know, the good stuff, right, Yeah, the greener the
the greener, the brighter that the almost day glory, it
(09:54):
is usually the better the actual macha is. And we'll
see exactly why. But somewhere along the way about the
eleventh century, UM or the twelfth century, I guess it
would be UM. I think back in the Japanese imported
this idea from the Chinese, and we it's weird to
(10:19):
think like there was a point in time where they're like, Okay,
we're gonna start powdering teeth from this process, and then
this will be go on to become macha. Were up
to that. Nobody made tea like that. They made tea
like you would think they grew tea. They kind of
packed it into cakes or bricks, and they sold it
like that, and you would steep it and you would
(10:39):
drink the liquor is what they call it, um, and
you would remove the tea leaves. That's not at all
what matches. Matches straight up ground powdered tea leaves, and
you're drinking the tea itself, not like steep tea. That's
that's come out of the tea and you're throwing the
tea leaves away. You're drinking the whole kitten caboodle, as
they say Japan, which is why there are so many
(11:00):
great health benefits which we'll get to. Uh. Yeah, there
was a well, first of all, it's in Japanese mott
means powdered and cha means tea, so being bad a
boom macha powdered tea. But there was a zen monk
name uh s I, I believe, so okay, who brought
(11:21):
these tea seeds after going on a trip to China.
And I think this is the person who in started
what I say, sorry, it was seven years uh started
cultivating this stuff and then had a pupil. And this
this stuff was very popular with the monks because they
(11:42):
could get caffeine loaded and stay up all night and pray.
But I had a pupil name Mioi, who was a
Buddhist monk there in the mountains northwest of Kyoto. And
I think this is the person that really took this
cultivation seriously and started to sort of make it a
larger scale operation. Yeah. Um, the Buddhist temple that Mioe
(12:06):
lived at I think was in charge of it's called
kozon g on the Tonga No Mountain. I checked with
you me. I was like, do you say both those?
And she said yeah, And I practiced and it's not
coming out right, But Taga No Mountain m outside of
Kyoto and um mioe just so happened where where he lived,
(12:29):
where he started planting this tea had these incredible, like
um natural conditions that just so happened to come together
that that produced exactly the kind of tea leaf that
you would want for macha. But it's it was just
a basically a freak of nature that it happened that way. Yeah,
(12:49):
He's like, you know, we got this great soil, super
fertile um, we have this morning dew that comes in
because of the river nearby, and that that really rest
on those tee eaves and just makes it all pop
with chlorophyll. And it became more popular. And as it
became more popular, it was the third show gun of
(13:09):
the Ashikaga Shogunate, and his name was Ashikaga Yoshi. Meet
Sue Beautiful. I love Japanese. Well it's wonderful, isn't it. Yeah,
there's something about it. It just appeals to my eyeballs,
and it's appeals to my tongue when I can manage
to get it out of my mouth correctly. There's just
(13:31):
something about it. I really like it. But um, he's
the one that said, all right, we gotta get more
of this stuff and fast because people love this macha.
So uh, let's get it going here in the Uji
era era area right outside of Kyoto. So it was
originally just on Tokenah Mountain and then it was expanded
(13:52):
to a wider area and it was there when they
expanded to Uji, and Uji is now like the place
where you get the world's greatest ma chu, they decided.
But at first the tea that they were starting to
produce an Uji when they first expanded it. Um, but
they were like, this is this is not nearly as
good as as the stuff that they're making over there
on Taga Mountain right um And they could not figure
(14:16):
out why. And then they went back and they looked
and they realized that on the mountain there was a
lot of forests that was naturally shading these tea bushes,
and that that was the big difference. Than they started
to study it more and more and more, and they
realized that they could kind of mimic this forest shading it,
and that if they did this at at certain amounts
(14:37):
or certain certain times during the growing season, um, they
could actually force the tea to produce exactly the kind
of leaves that they would want to um to turn
into macha because it takes a very specific kind of
um growth pattern and it's just so beautiful and zen
especially because these were zen monks who were figuring this out.
(15:01):
But it's just like this like delicately manipulating the plant
to get it to do what you want so you
can get the most remarkable leaves to use for macha.
I just find it seriously, Like when I was researching
this and studying this, I was just so much just
it was just calm and like really soothing, you know. Yeah.
(15:25):
I don't think we said with the name of it,
but it's called tincha before it becomes much much as
that final ground up powder. Yeah, everything leading up to
that is is like you said, tencha. So technically you
don't grow macha. So we'll talk about exactly how it's
cultivated later, but the upshot of it is that by
noticing that the forest around these um. These plants shaded them,
(15:49):
they figured out how to simulate it by building structures
around them, and what they've come up with finally, in
Uji is what you would call ceremonial grade pacha. Yeah,
and you know what, I looked that up and saw
a couple of things. I saw that ceremonial grade UM
was used to be reserved for royalty, and that it's
(16:11):
the you know, kind of the best stuff out there
as opposed to culinary grade, which you cook with. But
then I also saw other places that said that's sort
of a tag you can't even trust anymore, that's sort
of thrown on there for Americans. So I don't really
know what to believe. I do know that UM, like
a high quality Japanese macha, is not cheap, so that's
(16:33):
that can always be a decent guide if you're online
trying to buy some. If you see something super cheap,
it's probably not great. But there are four regions in
Japan where it's produced Uji, uh Fukuoka, Nishio, and Shizuoka,
and Uji is the most renowned. Obviously. The article from
Eater that I saw said it's sort of like seeing
(16:56):
Bordeaux on a wine label the net. The best would
be uh Fukuoka, which is on the island of Kyushu,
and they're sort of newer in the last like ten
to twenty years, but apparently are putting out some really
really good stuff. Uh Nicio is the largest by volume
(17:17):
of macha uh and they're sort of the more mass
market style and if you get that in the US,
it's not going to be very good apparently. And then
the last one is the Shizuoka, and they're the largest
producer of all green tea by volume, and it's not
very well regarded as like really good macha. So go
for that Uji or go for the Fukuoka if you
(17:38):
want the good stuff. Um So, I say we take
a break and then we'll come back and talk about
maybe the tea ceremony. How about that? Yes, let's take
a break. Okay, okay, chuck. So apparently ceremonial grade is
(18:13):
totally made up. But if you were going to I
don't think it's necessarily true. But I could Okay, I
could see people abusing that. How about that? Now I
could see non non Japanese retailers abusing that. How that? So?
Um But if you went to a tea ceremony um,
(18:34):
that would if if there is such a thing as
ceremonial grade, that probably would be the kind of tea
that they would serve you, and ceremonial grade tea, or
I should say that the tea ceremony um is called
the Chotto, which means the way of tea, because again
chaw means tea and dough means way, So this is
like the way of tea. And just the name of it,
(18:56):
of the tea ceremony being called that kind of gets
you this idea that there's like a zen vibe to it.
And their most decidedly is oh yeah, like if you
just watch one of these, it's just super calming. Everything.
It's sort of like that formal meal I was talking about.
Everything is just very exact and purposeful. Um, yeah, those
(19:19):
are the two words. Exact and purposeful is what it's
all about. You're not You're not just throwing tea around.
I mean everything from the folding of the napkin to
how you sit, it's all just very much planned out,
and uh, it's just super relaxing to be a part of.
I think it really is. I was talking to you
me about it because she she was trained in it
um and she said, it's super stressful while you're learning
(19:41):
because every single step in, every single hand movement, every
sound that the that you make, like the the whisk
clinking up against the bowl, um, all those things are
meant to to be a certain way, and so much
so that there's like different schools that do the the
ceremony slightly differently. But the ultimate point of the whole
(20:02):
thing is that it's meant to draw you into the moment.
It's meant to be a really meditative experience, not just
for you, the person making tea, but the person who's
being served tea. And it's it's um it is when
like you were saying, when you watch one of these
things there there's plenty of them on YouTube, it's real quiet,
really silent, and it's really meditative, even just to watch
(20:23):
a video of. But it's it's cool the idea that
there's this whole process planned out and that it's meant
to make you observe the moment. It also really shows
you how um this this whole thing has its roots
and Zen Buddhism, green tea does or macha. Yeah, even
the white lady in San Francisco, and that video you
(20:44):
sent me was relaxing. It was. But then did you
see the with the French one too, And that was
just like I was like in my chair drooling while
that one was going on because it was just totally quiet.
But when you watch a tea ceremony, you see that
that there's a specific way that you're supposed to to
um produce to make green tea, like the way that
(21:05):
you drink it macha um where it's just powder and
hot water mixed together and then there's your tea. But
then so you're supposed to use two scoops. If you've
ever seen like one of those little bamboo hook skewer
kind of things, it's called a cho shooka yeah, chuku
(21:25):
okay um. Those are equal to about a third of
a teaspoon, and you want two of those, so roughly
half a teaspoon if you don't have one of the
bamboo scoops for green tea. And then um, you put
in a little bit of water um and you stir
it together with the bamboo whisk until a froth forms
and then there you go. You've got your your macha prepared.
(21:46):
The traditional way, and you're supposed to drink in about
three SIPs from what I understand. Yeah, and it's um.
You know, you can get more detailed than that if
you want to. If you want to get out a
strainer to keep it from lumping up, you can do that. Um,
the water should be warm. You don't want to just
throw boiling water in there. Apparently anything over eighty degrees
(22:08):
will scorch it, and that will increase the bitterness. Unless
I don't know, you really like a bitter macha. I
guess that could be a a call you could make.
But there's a fine line. I think bitterness is a
part of macha to a certain degree, but it's not.
It shouldn't be the overriding characteristic. No, No, it's meant
(22:29):
to be balanced out by a sweetness because I mean macha.
It's like, if you've had tea but you've never had macha,
you you can't guess what macha tastes like just by
having had any other kind of tea before. It's got
its own flavor for sure. Yeah, I mean, green tea
will give give you a hint, like, if you really
like green tea, you'll probably like macha. But it's still
not quite the same thing. No, because the other thing
(22:49):
about macha too is it foams when you whisk it,
which um indicates that's got a mouth feel to it
that tea doesn't have. Like green tea is like tea.
The consistency of tea macha is almost like um creamy. Yeah,
it has a creamy ins to it, even though it's
just powdered tea. There's no cream in it, but it
has a creamy consistency to it too. It's basically magic
(23:12):
green potion from japan Land. Yeah, and it's differentiates. There's
another type of tea called hoji cha, which is um
reddish brown, and they get that from smoking it, So yeah,
it's a It has sort of a earthy, smoky aroma.
They both have that umami, those umami undertones um. But
(23:36):
the hoji chaw is not gonna be bitter because that
roasting process. I think I said smoking they actually roasted
um makes a little different. And I think hogi cha
doesn't have nearly as much caffeine as macha, much as
about three point two grams per grams of caffeine. It's
a lot of caffeine and hogias point one three if
(23:57):
that tells you anything, Holy cow, And it's three point
to wow. And again that's because you're drinking. You're drinking
the tea leaf itself, not just the liquor of the tea. Yeah.
But and I found this to be true. It's it's
not a it's not a super jittery caffeine. You know,
we'll talk about exactly why, but no, it's it's world
renowned because it's not a jittery caffeine feeling, even though
(24:20):
there's so much caffeine. It has what's called like an
alert um calmness or a calm wakefulness, something like that,
where it's like you're not jittery, but you're kind of
in the zone. Is how a lot of Westerners describe it. Yeah,
Like the samurai drank it for a reason because they
could they could meditate, but also know when someone was
fifty ft behind them with a sword, right, you know, right, yeah, exactly,
(24:44):
because they would sprout eyes in the back of their heads. Right.
The other thing, too, is I'm I don't want us
to make this sound exotic or unattainable, like people have
been drinking macha for a thousand years, more than a
thousand years now, or about a thousand years um. And
it's it's like it's powdered tea mixed with hot water
(25:08):
and then you drink it and it's wonderful. That's it. Like,
you don't have to have the ceremony. No, you don't
have to. There's a purpose to the ceremonies to take
time out from your busy life. But if you just
want some good macha, buy some good macha, get a
half of a table or a half of a teaspoon,
some warm water, stir it together and enjoy your matcha.
It doesn't have to be some You don't have to
(25:29):
be pretentious about it. No one does. And let's not
say the Japanese are pretentious about it, but just talking
about it like this can come off as pretentious, even
though it's not meant to be that way at all.
And I don't want to like scare anybody off or
make it sound like it's unattainable. It's super attainable, and
it's it's it's really beneficial to which is why I'm saying,
go try it if you haven't sure. I think it's
(25:51):
the same um sort of inaccessibility that some people might
feel about wine and a wine tasting can be intimidating
for people, or you know, if you go to a
place that has the pour over coffee and you know,
there are lots of different ways to skin the cat
and you can. You can, certainly, I mean, I think
Gwyneth Paltrow showed us that it was accessible right a
(26:12):
dreamy new discovery. She gooped it up for everyone. Yeah.
Uh and by the way, you said that to drink
it in the three slurbs. Apparently that last one is
when you turn that bowl fully up in sort of
the point of that is you're you're sort of in
that bowl with the t everything else is blocked out
around you because it's completely held up to your face.
(26:34):
Just savor that last that gulp and that last bit
of sereneness before you know, you get on Facebook and
talking about that's the That's that we didn't say. You're
supposed to traditionally drink it out of a t bowl
called called the chawan. And that's another thing too, Like
it's nothing to go to your local Japanese store and
say do you have stuff I need for macha and
(26:56):
they will say, here's the bamboo whisk, here's the bamboos
coop here's your T bowl, give us twelve dollars please.
It's not hard to get into it all, even in
the traditional ceremonial way. But it's, like you said, drinking
it out of that T bowl is it's a different
experience than just drinking out out of a mug, you know,
And it's meant to be that way. And there's you know,
(27:17):
you don't have to be pretentious about it, but there's
also something he said for honoring the tradition in whatever
way you feel comfortable doing. Yeah, because I mean, I
was reading about this um this morning drinking coffee and
I'm like, Macha and the experience of mant is basically
the opposite of coffee. Yeah, there's not It's not meant
(27:37):
to be like go go, go, let's go, let's get
the day started, right exactly. It's meant to be like,
let's take some time out of that day and just
like reflect and chill out for a minute, but get
a little buzz going. Yeah exactly, you can have it all.
So one we kind of like just glanced over the
fact that like Macha has grown in a really unusual way.
(28:00):
I feel like we should talk about that a little bit.
You want to yes okay so um. When they figured
out that there was a uh that the forest shading
the tea bushes were doing something special to it. When
they started growing at an Uji and the macha they produced,
or the tencha I should say, um wasn't nearly as good. Um,
(28:21):
they started really studying what was going on, and they
figured out that if you deprive the tea of the
tea bush of light at certain times and in certain amounts,
the tea bush will respond by producing exactly the kind
of leaves that you want to turn into macha. Eventually,
that's right, you're affecting the light cycle. Uh. And you
(28:44):
start this in about mid April. Then they figured out
what you do is you just build a little covering,
a little hut over these bushes, and you can apply straw,
more or less straw to allow more or less light
in to the bush. And around mid April you cut
that light down by about sixty to sevent and then
(29:06):
I think ten or twelve days after that you cut
it down almost a darkness to And that's sort of
where you get your good money chlorophyll and macha going on, right,
And so I mean, what's neat though, is like, we
can explain this now, but these guys figured this out centuries,
almost a thousand years ago, how to do this. But
now we understand that two things that give macha it's
(29:29):
sweet taste and it's bitter taste, or theonine and catkins.
There are two different compounds that are found in green
tea and macha um and theonine gives it its sweet flavor.
Catakians give it it's bitter flavor, and that through photosynthesis,
theonins become catkins. So if you can keep the plant
(29:50):
from photosynthesizing as much, there's fewer theonins that are going
to be turned into the bitter catkins. So that's one
reason you're depriving it of light. It's a pretty big step.
The other step, Chuck, is that they figured out that
chlorophyll is related to the amount of theenins. I don't
know if one produces the other or what, but they're
they're related to one another. So the more chlorophyll there is,
(30:13):
the more theenans are going to be. Hence the sweeter
the match is going to be. And that if you
deprive the tea bush of light, it's going to produce
more chlorophyll. To try to carry out photosynthesis. So not
only does it's it's color get greener, um, it produces
more theenans as a result. So by depriving it of
light at certain times and then using the tea bush,
(30:37):
that's um that comes out of like winter and has
like a bunch of nutrients packed down in its roots
and it's now sharing them with the the young buds um.
And that's what you harvest is the first leaves of spring.
That's how you get the tension that will turn into
the best kind of macha. Yeah, and you also get
those good the leaves get wider, you get those broad
(30:57):
leaves because they're seeking out the light they're not getting.
It's actually very cruel. I thought about that too. I
was like, the Japanese know how to torture some plants.
Between this and bonds eye, you know, yeah, it reminded
me of the marijuana podcast to the cultivation one, because
that's um. It's another plant that you know, you can
just throw a seed in the ground and grow tea
or grow marijuana and not worry about it because it's
(31:20):
just a plant. But if you alter the light cycles, Uh,
they both do something extraordinary. In the case of marijuana.
I believe altering the light cycles is what causes it
to bud at specific times. And it's kind of really
similar with the macha. It's kind of the same process.
So with marijuana, is it kind of like you're you're
making it think like the days are getting shorter and
(31:42):
so it needs to start budding or they think so longer. Okay,
I got to say, you're artificially manipulating what would naturally
play out over probably a longer period of time. Is
my is my guess grow marijuana. But I'm just kidding, right,
You're like there was a high times at my dentists.
That's ababily about right. Um. So, yeah, so they figured
(32:03):
all this out, like to do this with tea, and
they started out by by adding like little bamboo or
reed covers to deprive some light, and then they would
put straw mats over that. Now they use aluminum structures
around the bushes, and then they use just kind of
that black cheesecloth fabric that you see to like, um,
(32:24):
sometimes people put it down to keep weeds from growing
up in the right exactly, that's exactly what it's called.
Now they use that to cover up the the tea bushes.
They've got it down kind of pat but it's remarkably
similar to the same techniques they've been using since the century. Yeah,
(32:44):
I mean, you know, they made the switch to aluminum
because they would have to take these wooden frames out
and care for them in the off season, and um,
I think the same holds true with the straw. I'm
sure there are probably some traditionalists that are doing it
in the old way, but yeah, aluminum in landscape fabric
is sort of the modern version. Have you ever smelled
(33:05):
musty straw? It's not a good smell. M M. I
believe I've been on a hay Rider two. Is that
what you mean? Yes? Yeah, basically, but when you make
it something out of straw, like a something to cover
over shrubs with or whatever you should be out in
the rain, roll it back up, Oh yeah, yeah, it's
not a good smell when you unroll it again. Yeah. Like,
(33:26):
if you have a straw hat that falls in a
body of water, it's never gonna be the same again.
Has that happened to you, Tom Sawyer? Yeah? Emily, I
mean Emily has. He's she's a gardener, so she has
these huge straw hats okay, and if they get wet,
they get kind of stinky. You're right, Um, So you
want to take another break and then we'll talk about
health benefits of macha. Okay, We're going to do that everybody,
(33:49):
and we'll be right back. So I think we should
(34:13):
say chuck before we get before we get into the
health benefits. Um. When when tencha is produced, apparently all
of it is brought to one market in Kyoto. Um.
And Kyoto is like one of the greatest cities on
the entire planet. And it's just perfect that they have.
(34:34):
The macho market is in Kyoto, and people go there
and say, I really like this leaf, and I'm going
to buy your entire stock. Yeah, they have an auction.
It's amazing that they do this this way. They have
an auction. Uh. I think once a year at the
Kyoto Tea market, which opened in seventy four. And I'm
(34:58):
getting all my centuries wrong, but this was four and uh.
Like you said, these wholesalers and vendors they come in
and they do blind tastings, which is really cool. So
you can't say, like, you know, you're just not acquainted
with the brand before you taste it. Because every year
is going to be a little different, even if you're
trying to produce a consistent product here over year. You know,
(35:19):
every year brings a little different thing, just like the
wine business. So they go in there, they blind taste
the stuff and they're looking for kind of uh, you know,
you end up mixing these things together to get your
matcha at the end you I had no idea, did you. Yeah?
I think I've heard that that it's not just one
kind of tea leaf. You want a variation for fragrance,
(35:39):
for flavor, and for color. And these tea masters pick
this raw attention leaf um blindly and just say, hey,
this is what I'm looking for and looking for this one,
and I'm looking for this one, and I'm gonna get
all three of those, and I'm gonna bid on them
at this auction and then dry it up, stone grind
that junk into good, good green powder, magical Japanese powder. Yeah,
(36:05):
and then blended together and there Drmancha pal. Yeah, that's
the slogan. So the reason we keep calling this magic
powder is not just because of the ceremony and like
the whole zen vibe that it has to It definitely
has all that um but it it is verging on
magical as far as the health benefits that it bestows
(36:28):
on humans goes. At the very least, it is very
clearly qualifies as a super food. If there is such
a thing as a super food, green tea and specifically
macha definitely is that. Yeah, and you talked already about
the the anine a little bit. Um. They've been using
(36:48):
this in Japan and China for a stress remedy for thousands,
literally thousands of years. They say that it can help
with aging, um, with memory and recall. Apparently, if you
drink uh, gentlemen, if you drink five to seven cups
of macha day, you can really reduce your chances of
(37:09):
prostate cancer. That's what they say. Yeah, and and um,
and all green tea is good for you, we should
point out, but this is just like on steroids. Yeah,
that's the thing. Like macha is green tea. But most
of the time when you drink green tea, again, you're
steeping green tea leaves and you're not actually ingesting the
leaves themselves with maucha powder. You are, And so you're
(37:31):
getting exponentially more of this stuff, including the anine, including
the catkins um, including something called uh epic gallo catekin galit,
which is um been shown to improve memory mood along
with althenin. And then one of the other things is
these cateakins are antioxidants, Chuck, which I know you're kind
(37:55):
of chomping at the big to give a bit of
an overview of how antioxidants how help us um combat disease. Backstory,
we were poking fun at each other because you sent
me a thing, a primer on antioxidants. It's like, this
is like the fifth or sixth time we've probably given
an overview of antioxidants. Right, But but out of that
back and forth, we agreed to finally do an episode
(38:17):
on antioxidants in aging? Right? Did we agree? I suggested it.
I just assumed that you didn't respond that you were agreeing. No, No,
we should do that, and then we'll never talk about
it again. Right. I can't guarantee that, no, but that
that may be the last overview. So this may be
the last overview, how about that? Okay? Sure? So in
your body you have something that are called free radicals,
(38:39):
which is a type of molecule that UM have an
extra electron or missing an electron either way, they like
to go around and bind other stuff, and when they
do that, something called oxidation occurs in your body. Right,
an oxidation could be good UM in that like you
might have a pathogen floating around your body. These free
radicals UM, which are naturally occurring, can bind to these
(39:03):
pathogens and neutralize them, and you don't get sick from
a pathogen, so it's good. The problem is is you
can have too many free radicals in your body, and
so when you're when you're out of balance you have
too many free radicals, you suffer what's called oxidative stress,
where the free radicals start attacking stuff you need like lipids, fats,
(39:25):
like d NA, like proteins in your body, and that's
not good. So you have antioxidants in your in your body,
but if you're not producing enough antioxidants, your free radicals
can get out of balance. And it's good to do
things like drink green tea, which introduces a ton of
antioxidants to your body, and then they seek out those
(39:45):
free radicals, they bind with them and neutralize them. But
the thing about antioxidants is they don't lose their stability
themselves when they bind it. They just keep on keeping on.
But now they also have this free radical attached for
a ride, and everything's all good. So that's why they
think that UM antioxidants are that kind of the key
to healthy aging, because when those free radicals start attacking
(40:08):
your DNA, it can lead to things like tumors and cancer,
I can lead to all sorts of other problems, breakdown
of cells and tissues, UM and just general disease. They
think like that is the basis of aging, is oxidative stress,
and antioxidants can counter that. And MACHA in particular is
lousy with antioxidants like catkins. Yeah, and macha I mean
(40:31):
is literally good for almost every organ in your body,
and it's certainly not bad for any of them. It
helps with your liver, I think we already mentioned the kidneys,
certainly the brain, UM and memory, and the combination of
that alfy anne and caffeine supposedly actually helps you multitask
and like to go back and forth between tasks more easily.
(40:52):
So uh, like we mentioned earlier, you're alert, but you're
still calm. It's it is a bit of a miracle.
Powder it is because that althening can cross the blood
brain barrier. So it goes right to your brain and
starts pushing it around like do this, do that. But
it works synergistically with caffeine and that it also releases GABBA,
(41:13):
which is a calming um I guess inhibitory molecule. I'm
not sure it works together with with um with caffeine,
so that like you were saying, like you have all
of the all of the focus, but none of the jitters.
It's just amazing stuff. It's great to mail. It fights
(41:34):
cancer and it puts you in the zone. Although be
aware of one thing if you if you like macha
with like a latte with milk, that milk binds with
antioxidants very easily, so it neutralizes a lot of the
antioxidant effect in Macha. Yeah, Emily said. I told her
that I was going to get some in it had
been a while, and she said something about making me
a Macha latte, and I was like, I don't think
(41:55):
I want that. I think it just either dump it
in a smoothie or or just make my tea. Okay,
it's worth trying though. It's very good. Maybe Okay, whatever
you want to do. I'm I just think it's top
notch that we're drinking much of these days, we're gonna
live to hud thirty forty maybe do you have it
every day? Do you drink much every day? No? I
(42:17):
don't drink nearly enough, Macha, but this has gotten me
back into it as well. I made a little bit,
had the little uh bamboo scoop the cha shako, and
I started making myself some and Yumi Soda is doing
so she came over and finished making it for me.
It was very sweet. She said, here's what you're doing wrong.
She said, move dummy, but she said in Japanese and
I was like, what do you say and she said nothing. Yeah,
(42:39):
well it sounded nice because it's right exactly. And then
I think we should finish with this great quote from
why it's so popular these days? Um? And who is
this from? This is from Anna Calls of Green Gables,
who is a health coach and co authored Macha Colon,
a lifestyle guide. She says, this, the kermit the frog
(43:01):
color just made it so instagrammable that that we have
gooped to thank for it. That's right. Uh, let's see,
that's it for Macha. Go back and um, maybe go
try it yourself. It's totally worth it. And we hope
you like it. Uh. And since I said that it's
time for a listener mail, I'm gonna call this my
(43:25):
tapeworm experience from Travis. Hey, guys, big fan of the show.
Loved the one on tape worms, and it gave me
flashbacks to my own experience. Four years ago. I was
working at a fishing lodge in Ontario, Canada. Had severe
gastro intestinal issues for several weeks over the summer, and
I visited a doctor and after a stool sample, discovered
I had a fully mature fish tapeworm inside of me.
(43:49):
It made for a pretty miserable summer. The doctor helped
me trace the timeline back to infection, and the likely
culprit was a batch of cevica that a guest had made.
Oh no, And for those of you listening to Vicha's
prepared by soaking fish in citrus juices overnight, essentially cooking it,
(44:10):
ideally cooking it, chemically cooking. I was to be just great.
Love it. Um. I was prescribed one pill to paralyze
the worm so it would release its hold and my
body could get rid of it. But I had to
wait in agonizing three days for the pill to arrive
due to my remote location. Nothing like knowing there's a
thirty inch tape worm inside of you, leaching away at
(44:30):
your bodies and nuturious. I can't imagine. Can you imagine
just a little bit? Like all right, three days? I
just got to know this about myself. I can't. I can't.
I don't know what I would do to numb that pain.
He said. It took a year of supplements to get
my weight back, and he lost twenty pounds and beat
twelve back to normal. Word of caution, the doctor told me,
if you plan to eat any raw fish, to make
(44:51):
sure it has a hard freeze for at least twenty
four hours to kill any tape worm eggs. A lesson
I will not soon forget. That is from Travis in Bend, Oregon. Man, Travis,
that was a cruel summer. Indeed, I'm glad you made
it out, though, buddy, Apparently it takes forever to get
(45:11):
stuff in Bend, Oregon. I didn't realize that. I think
he was not in Bend, Oregon at the time. Okay, yeah,
he was at a fishing lodge in Ontario, Canada. Okay, okay, okay, okay,
um great, well, thank you for that story that was
just magnificent. It really is a good accompaniment to the
actual episode two, don't you think If you want to
(45:32):
get in touch with this, like Travis did, you can
send us an email send it off to Stuff podcast
at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is
a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more
podcasts for my heart Radio is at the iHeart radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever he listened to your favorite shows.
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