A sunny day, enjoying the afternoon swimming in the sea. At least some water is needed to refresh. Or even better some Suikyo Mizucha and a bottle with cold water. Now in the evening, the sun is still beautiful, but shining in a more relaxed mode than in the eary afternoon. The right time for trying something new?
Many greens and many whites
There are countless different varieties of green leaves, as the Suikyo Mizucha only represents one single variety of a plenty of them. And there are also quite many different varieties of White Port Wine, even if those are probably quite a few only, compared to the countless varieties of Red Port Wine. So, if we talk about mixing green leaves with White Port, we are not really talking about one single drink. Combining green leaves like the Suikyo Mizudashi with White Port Wine is the just the starting point of an experience that will bring various new flavours into extistence or at least into our heads.
What kind of White Port Wine will be a great combination with the Suikyo leaves?
We have one quite simple White Port with us, that is very young and really not expensive. It seems to be good just as an starting point. It comes with a quite strong sweetness and a uncomplicated taste. We put some drops into the cold water with Suikyo and we taste it. Simple spoken, it just makes the Suikyo Mizucha sweeter and brings some fruity taste notes. Not bad, but not really a highlight.
Next White Port, next trial?
Next we open a nice little bottle of a 10 years old white Port. It still has a plenty of sweetness, but the sweetness is a kind of a little more discreet. Also, it is a more interesting kind of sweetness, not only a fruity sweetness. It is more complex. We find quite strong taste notes of peach and apricot, but also more nuances of wood. Will it be a good combination with the Suikyo?
Many possible ways how to combines Mizucha and White Port Wine
It turns out that the simpler variation of White Port Wine, which is very young, is a quite good Port to be combined with the Suikyo Mizucha, but the taste is a bit boring. The 10 years old Port Wine is much more interesting in taste, but also really not cheap. In regard to the taste we see that the simple White Port Wine is nice to give our drink a little sweetness, but some drops of the 10 years old White Port Wine give our drink more character. So we finally use both White Port Wine to combines them with the Suikyo Mizucha, while we use only a quite little amount of both. The biggest part of our drink is codl water, which is a kind of guarantee, that it is still refreshing and not only making one drunken by the first drop.
Purity versus mixed stuff?
Infusing organic green leaves with cold water means to create a very pure and natural drink. Though, what about blending it with other ingredients? Is it possible to create something that could still be called ‘puristic’ or will it become just a punched something?
After thinking about this question for several years, and after trying different mixes with various ingredients, we came to a first conclusion: In order to be able to call the final result ‘pure’, it would be good to use as less different components as possible. For exaple not to use green leaves, juices, fruits, wine and so on, but for example only to use two ingredients or two categories of ingredients. And, to use ‘simple’ kinds of ingredients for example wine that is made from pure grapes and not a drink that already consists of several ingredients by itself.
Even if we finally mixed cold water with green leaves of the Suikyo Mizucha, and blended it with two variations of Port Wine, it is still a quite pure drink in the above mentioned sense. While the taste notes are really impressing by combining the green and fresh taste of the Suikyo with an artistic sweetness of the mix of the two White Port Wines, they bring wooden taste notes, peach and apricot, and probably many more, to be characterized by a better description later.
But at the same time, our drink is only made out of cold water, pure green leaves and different parts of grapes, that are used for the White Port Wine production.