Aurora and I had a matcha tasting aboard the Wild Turkey. I’ve been working on sourcing green tea powders outside of Japan, to see what’s out there and see if any of it is good. We compared two premium grades, one from Japan and one from Korea. I was telling Aurora that whisking matcha should sound like gently, quickly sweeping a floor, and then you’ve got to drink it right away while the tea is momentarily suspended in the water. She laughed and said the nuances of preparing matcha were similar to sailing a boat.

The taste of the two teas? Japanese matcha, with centuries of cultivation, has a much more refined taste, that’s very creamy and balanced. Korea has only been making green tea powder for 50 years, so the tea is very much like a young buck, with lots of punch and wildness.