Copper Kettle Takeover: Of Tacos, Toasts & Other Big Truths in Thimble-Sized Sips

In which heat sources and Sakura forecasts shift like perspectives.

Let’s not make this about the tea, for once.

April Fools. It’s always about tea. Or, maybe, tea is always about it. As two clever Jo(h)nson’s once said: I know your ‘bout it ‘bout it, but it’s how you go about it.

Now that we’ve returned for that 16 year/2-minute interlude, let me bring you up to speed. Or, rather, slow you down so we’re moving at the same pace.

As I was reminded in a gongfu tea lesson this morning, there is a reason why turtles are revered and the Chinese say 慢慢走 & 慢慢吃—because eating slowly and moving slowly and otherwise doing slowly is a prescription for a long life. And quite suddenly, in fact, I’m trying to see if I can hit 117, which may or may not have been how fast I was driving on the highway when I was 17  and was then gracefully given my first speeding ticket.

If you’re thinking that it could have been a felony, you might be right.

But, you see, I’ve gone ahead and acquired a new copper kettle from Stove, a quaint home good store down the street. It is copper kettle (with nickel plating) called a 銅之薬缶 made in Niigata prefecture and designed by Kaoru Watanabe (you can see more tea work from the designer on the Azmaya store here).

I spotted the kettle over a year ago when we started to supply our new pad with hiba chips from Stove and told myself I would wait until I was ready. I guess I needed a final year with my long-beloved Bonavita variable control gooseneck electric kettle. I’ve long been aware that heat sources (open flame, charcoal, gas, alcohol, infrared) offered much to my tea experiences but felt nervous about letting go of control for fear of all those variables crushing me. I wanted to hit my gyokuros right at 60 C and my pu’erhs right at 100 C and my Darjeelings at 88 C and my heavier roasted oolongs at 95 C and my sencha at 80 C. I guess I needed to get used to the ranges and the Bonavita was my range finder. I wanted precision and it gave it to me, even at the expense of so much else.

I loved the Bonavita enough that when my first broke I bought another, meaning I’ve been brewing most of my teas with that kettle for about 10 years. I always knew we’d part but I found myself wanting to praise it a little right now because that machine allowed me to drink a wide range of teas—however incorrectly from a traditional perspective—in a way that was toward how the vendors that introduced me to the teas recommended they be brewed. However superficial it may have been, dialing in the volumes with a scale and temperatures with my bonavita allowed me to get a sense of what these teas were like—and maybe, more importantly—how they differed and were similar to each other. It made a great training kettle and if you are looking to explore tea, it is a path worth considering, depending on your goals, time, and disposition.

Because, after all, with the Bonavita you can lock the water into the desired temperature at a speed that made sense in a modern, fast-paced world.

But by the time they come over to drill holes in your floor though, you might be ready to try another approach. And while eventually with the 炉will come the 茶釜—a 丸茶釜 if I follow sensei’s advice—for now, I’m enjoying the flexibility of the copper kettle on the infrared hearth.

In true beginner spirit, I confess to trying to boil the water from zero on the first attempt. I waited an hour. But it wasn’t so bad. I mostly did nothing but sat there and listened. It got warm. Almost started to turn, but never got hot enough to see any eyes, much less raging torrents.

A full week into using it, I’m instead getting accustomed to the rhythm of the blue flame on the kitchen stove darkening the light, almost rose-gold, copper surface as it boils, then bringing the boiled water in and resting it on the infrared coals. After a minute or so it starts to purr like my dog when the mailman approaches but never boiling over into a fit of barking. And who said purring was only for cats?

Around here, they say you’re only supposed to rock the sunken hearth from the start of November through April, so let’s see how rigid I feel when we get to May 1, but for now I’m very much enjoying listening and slowing down. Even if I can’t tell whether it’s the fire or the metal or infrared or, indeed, the extra waiting that’s doing the trick—or the combo—the final water is dramatically smoother than what I’m used to at home.

And these days, despite wanting to learn to wind surf, I’d prefer slow and smooth over fast and choppy. I’ll keep the Bonavita stashed away, just in case—like training wheels gathering dust in the garage, now that I’m learning how to ride a two-wheeler like a big boy. But if I look far enough onto the horizon, I can see there are unicycles and magic carpets and dragons to ride too. This isn’t my last kettle. Just my next one.

The last few days have been what we call in Japan rather バタバタ — packed to the brim with Spring happenings—including probably (and impossibly) the best full taco meal of my life courtesy of Marco from Monterrey, MX at Tacos Bar in Ebisu (a meal so delicious I had to return for breakfast offerings two days later), a joyous conversations with Jessica — a fellow (and far more talented) Angeleno toast aficionado — at the Sqirl x Sunshine Juice collabo at The Breakfast Club in Nakamegro, an inspiring visit to see the new spiritual vehicle of design at ADI (my favorite restaurant in Tokyo), a home-visit from the good people at Kamakura International FC (where I got to serve up some tea and some nonsense which you’ll no-doubt hear about later), two separate outdoor/indoor Sakura-inspired Tea Ceremonies in Tokyo with Dokodemocha’s own Alba (aka Sogyô宗暁), two very different but equally enthralling art exhibitions by two different neighbors of mine here in Omachi (Kamakura native Takamune Ishiguro’s fascinating assemblage of collagraphs/etchings/lithographs “Memory of Nature” exhibition at Komachi Dori’s Earth Gallery and Tyman Visser’s Retrospective Exhibition of zany/sincere/heartfelt/ironic/bold paintings about Japanese daily life at 1010 Art Gallery in Yokohama’s Chinatown) and, finally, a mind-bending, perspective-flipping experience at my first ever proper Senchado tea ceremony (hosted by Nakai Sosen of the the Tokyo branch of Oubakubaisa-ryu Senchado school which I was invited to attend by my own teacher Karaki Taisen) at my favorite Kamakura temple, Kenchoji (in the same room where I first learned how to sit Zazen no less).

If I told you an hour ceremony yielded only enough liquid in two steeps to fill my contact case, would you still believe me if I told you the droplets of nectar on my lips were like a cosmic colossus pinching together two most delicate cuts of jade until they dripped the juicy balm on my mental mortal wounds? And that I was left wondering whether I’ve been missing the tea all along by focusing so much on the tea?

Picture me now making Tea Factory Gen x All About Tea’s organic Kagoshima Asano Gyokuro  in the April Fool’s Day dusk, doing as instructed on the package and “Rather than literally gulping it down, roll a few drops around your tongue to release the concentrated tea extract.” May this taste linger for 20 days, the duration which the plant was shaded. I’m already planning to enjoy the spent leaves over rice for dinner.

In other news, this week I also hung up my first painting (an inner-child-led hanging scroll created with matcha, turmeric, acrylic paint and using only chashaku and chasen as painting tools on 15-year old paper provided to be my neighbor Sergio) in the same room where I served the last of my dongfang meiren from Moksa to a seven-year-old who kept telling me it was so hot and so good as he asked for ever more steepings. But maybe more on all or any of that another time.

There are weeks were so little happens and I find myself able to write so much. But on these occasions where so much occurs between dispatches, I get overwhelmed, and as usual, there is nowhere else to turn but toward poetry.  

I hope you are all able to slow down, even just a microsecond, this week and boil your water a little differently than you did before. After all, they might be late, but the Sakura are starting to appear to Kanto and they are best enjoyed in the spaces between your heartbeats, rolled across the taste buds of your guts.

The Unread Aloud April Fools Joke?

My hero
Died before
We met

But he 
reminded me
I’m new here

So call me 
Writer
Only if you must

But I spent
Last week 
Painting 
With tea

And watched birds
I can’t name
Snatch branches & twigs
From my yard
Before I could 
Photograph them
You see

I just got
My first camera
And I don’t
Yet know
How to hold
It properly

My tea teacher
Can see me
From her window
So she can
Attest to how
Little I know
About tea
After all
I just used it
To paint
My first pictures

The ones I can’t take

But call me 
Artist
Only if you
Saw me dancing
To Terry Riley
My singing teacher 
Down the street
From Jomyoji, In Nikaido
Where my plant teacher
Told me not to cross lines
But so it seems
They are crossing me

My first day in Kamakura
I wept warm fuzzy tears
At Jomyoji
As it rained on the rocks

So call me
Crier
Only if you 
Fear your fragile
Heart as wholly
As I feared mine
As my hero feared
His

I almost forgot
He reminded me
To tell you
I’m new here
And ask
If you would show 
me around

Because I’m dying
Every day
To know why
Once a week
I have the best day 
Of my life
Whether I write a word
Or paint a drop
Or register a bird
Or splash my tea
Or sit zazen until
My scapula screams

And my only hope 
For answers
Is listening 
To sounds of the mountain
And slips of the waves
Metered by double 
Shrine hand claps

And bowing until
My hips hear 
The slapstick truths
That I’m only a student
In my Kamakura classroom
And I’m still grateful
Every day
That they even
Let me in the gates

A place where 
All my neighbors
Are my teachers
And they don’t
Even know it

And can you imagine?
There’s a Kamakura Club
Just the right size
You need no invitation
Just come on in

And call me
Writer
Only if don’t have time
For a poem this long

But if that’s the case
How do you expect
To handle
The novel?