Sengoku samurai warlords transform into easy-to-brew, fruity flavored tea tablets

A new line of tea tablets uses the family crests of six famous samurai clans from Japan’s Sengoku era along with uniquely selected flavors for each.

Japanese tea company Olive has joined the growing ranks offering high-quality tea in tablet form, sometimes cleverly called “chablets” (combining the English with the Japanese word for tea, cha). Its latest chablet offering is sure to appeal to history buffs with its connection to Japan’s Sengoku warring states period from the 15th and 16th centuries, when the families of prominent samurai vied for power in almost continuous uprisings and civil war.

Olive was inspired to create this Sengoku Kamon (煎國花紋) set in response to a theoretical alternative version of history: “What would have happened if warlords competed on the deliciousness of tea instead of military strength”? The name Sengoku Kamon also incorporates some clever kanji play by swapping the character used for sen from “war” to “infuse/brew” and the character for ka from “family” to “flower” in order to mimic the spelling of Sengoku Kamon (戦国家紋), or “Sengoku family crests.”

▼ True to the set’s name, the family crests of six prominent historical warlords are imprinted onto the chablets.

Sengoku Kamon imagines six famous warlord families as kinds of additive-free, naturally flavored tea. The crowning touch is that the flavors selected for each individual clan were chosen based on the local specialties and famous food products from the places associated with each of them throughout Japan.

Here are the clans and their respective flavors along with the origins of the natural flavors.

● Tokugawa: Strawberry-flavored Ceylon tea, Shizuoka Prefecture
● Takeda: Grape-flavored Ceylon and Darjeeling tea, Yamanashi Prefecture
● Toyotomi: Sweet osmanthus-flavored matcha with gold dust, Osaka Prefecture
● Oda: Peach leaf-flavored orange pekoe tea, Aichi Prefecture
● Akechi: Chestnut, apple, rosehips-flavored Assam tea, Gifu and Kyoto Prefectures
● Chosokabe: Pear and sweet osmanthus-flavored Japanese black tea, Kochi Prefecture

▼ Teas in the above list are pictured top-to-bottom, left-to-right below.

The tea flavors themselves aren’t the only draw because the box itself is a gorgeous keepsake with the six family crests printed in gold on the packaging. It’s even designed to stand upright with the help of two small leg stands so that you can enjoy it as a decoration after finishing the tea.

In addition, never fear if you’ve never used a chablet before because each one is perfectly portioned with the right amount of condensed tea so that you don’t have to do any measuring or remove any tea leaves. For hot tea, simply infuse one chablet in 180 milliliters (6.1 ounces) of hot water for three minutes, and for iced tea, infuse one chablet in 500 milliliters of cold water for one hour.

The set also comes with a small packet of konpeito, Japanese sugar candy, that can be used to sweeten the tea or eaten as a snack accompaniment.

▼ This person can be seen dropping some konpeito into the cup to brew tea on the sweeter side.

The Sengoku Kamon set of flavored tea retails for 3,300 yen (US$21.80) and makes for a classy souvenir for yourself or a tea-loving friend who also loves Japanese history. If this tea makes you want to embody the spirit of Sengoku warlords even more, you may want to check out this new armor underwear as well.

Source, images: PR Times
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