Modern matcha

Matcha is making more and more of a mark in these modern times. It's finely ground down, powdered green tea (cha meaning 'tea' in Japanese), and is purported to have wonderful health effects.

Matcha - powdered green tea

The first time I came across matcha was when my Zen teacher Daizan did a Japanese tea ceremony with us a few years back – I thought it tasted pretty horrible, bitter and strong! Then I went to Japan and we spent an afternoon with a tea master (mistress; on the left in the photo) and learnt about the art of the tea ceremony.

The development of the tea ceremony in Japan was very much influenced by Zen over the centuries, and has almost become the epitomy of mindfulness practice in action. Everything about the ceremony is highly ritualised, from the way you sit, the way the tea is prepared and the cleansing of the utensils, what kind of bowels are used, how you drink it, what scroll is handing on the wall and what flower arrangement is used, etc, etc. If your mind wanders then you can easily forget a crucial detail, so you must stay focussed!

But tea ceremony isn't just good for the mind. As I mentioned above, matcha has many fantastic health benefits. As I wrote in a previous article, the first person credited with bringing green tea from China to Japan was a Zen monk called Myōan Eisai (b. 1141). He wrote a manual for restoring and boosting health and wellbeing called "Drink tea and prolong life", and, as you can imagine, tea featured pretty highly.

In Chinese and Japanese traditional medicine, the heart is associated with the bitter taste, and the heart is seen as being the chief among the organs. At the time Eisai noticed people consumed very few bitter foods, he suggested drinking bitter green tea as a way of balancing their diet and restoring health. I think this applies just as much today, though, as back in the 1100s. We eat very few bitter foods (and those we do eat we tend to sweeten). I guess alcohol is one exception (beer and wine tend to be more bitter than your average drink), and if you've ever tried to get a non-alcoholic drink in a bar that's not mega-sweet then you'll appreciate this.

According to modern science, Eisai was really onto something with his green tea.

The tea bushes used to make matcha are grown under shade which causes the plant to dramatically increase the Chlorophyll content of the leaf, and Chlorophyll is rich in antioxidants. As a result, matcha has something like 140 times the antioxidants of regular green tea. Oxidation (a chemical reaction resulting in a gain in an oxygen atom) is a process that can cause cell dysfunction (a peeled apple or potato turning brown is the effect of oxidation), and the skin is at particular risk since it's our outer layer. Antioxidants block the effects of highly reactive molecules containing oxygen (free radicals) by sacrificing (being oxidized) themselves – hence why they're so important. Green tea also naturally contains polyphenols which can further inhibit UV radiation-induced skin damage.

According to this Teapigs article, matcha also contains two special amino acids called Theophylline and L-Theanine which give a sustained energy boost which can last 6 hours – this I've certainly noticed myself – and it can also increase your body's heat production by up to 40%, helping weight loss and the metabolism. And since matcha is made from the whole tea leaf, finely ground up, you end up consuming every last bit of goodness!

Teapigs modern matcha kit

Now what about caffeine... Ok so matcha has more caffeine in it than black tea, but only about 2/3 of the amount of caffeine compared to a standard filter coffee. Here are the stats: black tea 17mg per 100ml, matcha 29mg, filter coffee 45mg, espresso 173mg (source www.caffeineinformer.com). When you take into account the amino acids and this caffeine, it can really give you quite a lift.

Since I recently received a Modern Matcha Kit from Teapigs, I've been experimenting with ways of incorporating a more modern, cut-down tea ceremony into my daily routine.

I've got my traditional utensils – my chashaku (tea scoop) and chasen (whisk) – and my beautiful chawan (tea bowls). And now, thanks to Teapigs, I've got my modern equivalents – a 2ml plastic tea scoop, an Aerolatte electric frother, and a Teapigs shot glass.

My traditional bamboo tea scoop (chashaku) and the modern plastic equivalent

My traditional chasen (bamboo whisk)

The first time I tried the electric whisk with some matcha and hot water in the shot glass, about a second after I turned it on I had nothing left in the glass! Again, when I tried the electric whisk in a half-full tea bowl I was left with barely anything in the bowl! The frother is clearly over-powered for the job! However, electric whisking the matcha with just a small amount of water in the bottom of the bowl seems to work much better. The powder is well mixed in (no lumps) and a good froth forms, then you only need to add more hot water. I have to say it certainly beats the manual whisk in terms of convenience and effort (especially given my poor whisking technique!).

I've found my matcha routine a lovely addition to my morning. My meditation starts with methodically and mindfully making a matcha (so many alliterations...), drinking it slowly on my meditation cushion, then sitting for my usual 30mins of practice.

If you would like to try matcha for yourself or anything else from Teapigs, they've very kindly offered a 10% discount to readers of this blog valid until the end of June 2014. Just enter "mark" at the Teapigs checkout to get your discount (excludes cheeky, bulk buys, pick & mix and matcha kits). You could try doing the teapigs matcha challenge... Do let me know about your experiences with matcha using the comments box below.

teapigs matcha challenge

(Thanks to teapigs for sending me their modern matcha kit.)

If you would like to try matcha for yourself or anything else from teapigs, they have very kindly offered a 10% discount code for all Blue Kitchen Bakes readers valid until the end of June. Just enter blue at the checkout (excludes cheeky, bulk buys, pick & mix and matcha kits).

Thanks to teapigs for sending me a matcha kit. All views and opinions are my own.  - See more at: http://bluekitchenbakes.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/i-took-on-teapigs-matcha-challenge.html#sthash.mUE57rjL.dpufffffffffffffffffff

From the ground up: Drawing energy and nutrients up from your roots

Last week, in the third article in the series of looking at our roots, we focussed on some of the physiology around the top of our root structure – where our roots turn into our trunk. We zoomed in on the pelvic floor, with all its layers of muscle and fascia, looking at their physiological function and some exercises to help us discern which muscles are which.

Have you been getting on? Have you been practising finding those three areas of your pelvic floor area that you can contract/lift? – the muscles around your genitals (stopping yourself urinating), around your anal sphincter, and that area in between (the perineal body/perineum and the central portion of the pelvic diaphragm/levator ani). Have you been able to isolate the lift in just that central area, your perineum?

If you have, then you're on the way to opening up the physical component of one of the most important subtle energetic practices in yoga. My teacher Jonathan Monks always talks of us having five bodies (or koshas): the physical, the mental, emotional, energetic, and spiritual. Everything that we do – every action, thought or feeling – is motivated by, and has a corresponding effect on, each of the five bodies. So by concentrating on the physical (the easiest level to work on), we can begin affecting the others and exploring their relationships.

Energetically, the pelvic floor is very important. In yoga, this area is associated with your Muladhara or base/root chakra – the first in the series of seven major chakras (or energy centres) located along the centre-line of your trunk. This point is also very important in the Chinese energy system, where it forms the base of the belly energy area (tanden in Japanese, or dantien in Chinese) and is called the Hui Yin. It's the first point on the Ren Mai (Conception Vessel) meridian that runs down the middle of the front of your body; the name Hui Yin means something like "meeting/convergence of yin" (sometimes translated as "seabed"). If you're interested see this nice article.

Back to the more yogic side of things... The pelvic floor muscles themselves are associated with your Mula Bandha. Bandha is variously translated as lock, or gate, doorway, and in yoga practice, engaging mulabandha is often taught as simply lifting your pelvic floor (as we discussed in the previous article). However, as the Yoga Journal puts it "Mula Bandha may be the most befuddling, underinstructed technique in the world of yoga"...

So what exactly is mulabandha? On a physical level, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika (one of the key historic yoga texts) clearly states that "the anus should be forcefully contracted when performing mulabandha", whereas there are other texts (like Moola Bandha by Swami Buddhananda) that say that "when engaging mulabandha there should be no movement of the anus" (or penis for a man).

What makes the most sense to me is that when you first start practising mulabandha you begin on the gross physical level (i.e. the most obvious thing you can do with your physical body – the easiest to feel), and from there gradually refine your senses to something more and more subtle. So, to begin with all we can do is simply (brutishly!) lift the entire pelvic floor area (i.e. do a Kegel exercise). This is great as it starts to strengthen and define the muscles for all the physiological reasons described in my previous article, and we can gradually begin to tune in to the different muscle areas until we can move them individually. Eventually we may just be able to engage the central portion of the pubococcygeus muscle to lift only the perineum, without contracting the other muscles around the anus and rectum (technically called Aswini mudra), and urethra (Vajroli mudra).

As Dr. Summers says in her book "Mulabanda", "according to Tantric theory, this [perineum lift] initiates mulabandha’s effects on the energy body... As one isolates the central portion of the pelvic floor, an awareness of muladhara chakra develops." So we move from the physical to the energetic, and I think this is where all the befuddlement arises.

You can think of energy following awareness and intention – awareness draws energy to that point, and intention makes it move. Dr. Summers goes on to say: "Eventually, this energy [in the muladhara/hui yin] can be directed without any muscle activity." As our practice becomes more refined, we begin to learn how to activate the energetic component of mulabandha using our intention, without needing the physical (muscular) component.

However, as Jonathan says "you cannot do Bandha, Bandha does you". The more we try, the more we tense up and the harder it becomes – like all of life, we have to find that balance between effort and letting go. All we can do is put ourselves in the place where it naturally occurs and let it happen (if it does).

So what's the point, I hear you ask, in doing this at all...? Well, besides all the physiological benefits, once we can learn to tune into and sense the flow of our energy, then we can learn how to direct it, and here's where things get interesting... It depends a little on your tradition: we can learn how to really root ourselves in the earth, direct energy up the chakras to stimulate higher spiritual states, draw in energy to charge up the tanden area (developing power and presence), etc. In traditional yoga, this upwards direction is the main aim (connecting to the heaven, raising the kundalini, etc.), but in the Chinese and Zen systems, we practice moving this energy up the back, over the head, and down the front, forming a circulating connection (the so-called microcosmic orbit).

It's all about softness, awareness, intention, and sensitivity.

Image credit