I described Ochazuke the day before yesterday on “Kamakura under the sun is amazing!“, but I’m afraid if you don’t know what Ochaduke is. Today I wanna explain little more about Ochaduke.
“Ocha” means Japanese tea especially green tea or roasted tea are suitable for the dish, and “Zuke” means submerging. As you can see on the below picture, hot tea over steamed rice is the way to cook. We usually put something on rice in addition to hot tea. What I bought in TORMARU is it. We call it “source of Ochaduke” or “Furikake”.
This is quite simple, isn’t it? However the history is deep. It started before 794, thus it’s more than 1200 years. Basically water over rice is not polite under Japanese etiquette. In Edo Era (1600-1867) slaves worked for their masters, and everything was managed including eating. They only had a few minutes to eat. Can you eat rice and other dishes in a few minutes? They need to save their time, and Ochazuke was the way to do it. At the moment Ochazuke was for people belonged to hard-core poor.
Now the theory changed. Ochazuke is even a poultry item. In my opinion Kyoto has an origin of Japanese food, and the taste of Ochazuke is sophisticated. You can cook at home, but if you have a chance to visit Kyoto, its Ochazuke is different.
