Lawson Serves Up Matcha
And FamilyMart toys with new ginger.
Lawson has launched a matcha campaign.
Matcha is powdered green tea. It has an unmistakably bright color and bitter flavor. Traditionally, it’s served in a tea ceremony, a tortuous event in which a small group cordially grimaces through shattered knees while eating dainty, seasonal sweets.
Tourists commonly seek out a tea ceremony. This is a mistake. It’s less a chance to admire Japanese culture and more a test of wills.
This is because tea ceremony lasts one to three hours and is conducted entirely on the floor in the seiza position.
Just as your knees swell and a throbbing ache infects your bones, you realize ninety minutes remain. The Japanese guests look fine. Their posture is upright; they smile and carry on polite conversation.
Meanwhile, you’re in agony.
When you entered the room and saw zabuton pillows arranged around a shallow table, you thought, “Finally, we’ll get to experience sitting on the floor like the Japanese!” Then, thirty minutes pass, and you’re ready to tell Jack Bauer where the bomb is.
“Just get me off this goddamn floor, Jack!”
The tea master begins mixing another round of tea. Spooning the raw matcha into the mixing bowl takes forty-five seconds due to her choreographed moves and miniature ladle.
“You’re goddamn right, I built the bomb! I built it, set it, and I was gonna blow it!”
You want to reach across the table, rip the flimsy dollhouse spoon from that bitch’s hand and toss the green dust out the window.
But you can’t. You’re stuck, now frozen, legs locked under your hips. “Do I need a doctor?” you think as all sensations leave your lower body.
You look around the table assessing your companions’ conditions. The Japanese are swell. It’s still all smiles and pipe upright posture. Meanwhile, the foreigners are breaking. Fun has left the room. Tea and sweets are distant thoughts. A dimming hope of walking again clouds their minds.
Who will break from seiza first and settle into Indian style? You begin to weigh options: commit a faux-pas or three months of physical therapy? You begin to hate everyone around you, especially the tea master. The delicately flowing moves you initially admired now feel like taunts. She could go faster, but she won’t!”
“It’s in the basement, hidden under the workbench! Now let me sit on my ass!”
A friend breaks. He tilts sideways and sticks his limp legs forward. The relief is instant. Euphoria spreads across his face and blood rushes into his busted joints. He moans, totally gratified. If you had a cigarette, you’d hand him one.
Your Japanese friends chuckle at the foreigner.
Fuck ‘em.
All at once, foreigner legs pour out from under them. A chorus of sighs echoes around the shoji paper walls. Relief!
The next sip of matcha is the best thing you’ve ever tasted.
Item of the Week
In an earlier newsletter, we broke down New Days’ Sugo Onigiri series. This week, they’re dropping the Bacon and Egg Sugo Onigiri.
The egg is flavored with soy sauce and sits on a “cheese mayo” slathered onto peppered rice.
If Japan only had real bacon, this would be an onigiri for the ages.
From the Dumpster
FamilyMart has released the Iwashita New Ginger Stick. It is a stick of ginger you can eat as is. You just bite into it and chew.
I know what you’re thinking: “Wouldn’t that be gross?”
But the Iwashita company is doing a lot to convince you otherwise.
They have a mascot named Iwashika, a pink deer with ginger antlers. “Shika” means deer in Japanese, so this is a pun on Iwashita.
Iwashika has its own YouTube channel with nearly 7,000 subscribers. This banger has 1.4 million views.
Naturally, it’s all over social media. The Facebook page features a cloth new ginger root with googly eyes enjoying local attractions.
The company also has a New Ginger Museum featuring exhibits like the Ginger Bedroom and Ginger Shrine.
If a root needs to form a company, create a mascot, and build a museum, we probably shouldn’t be eating it.
The over-the-top marketing may be counterproductive. New ginger is just the soft, pink flesh that grows soon after planting. The ginger served at good sushi restaurants is often new ginger. FamilyMart’s stick may be a refreshing bite, especially as Japan’s summer heats up.
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