Hani Hima Pours Green Tea and Looks Back on Tea-Ceremony Lessons in Kindergarten

V-DERE — Hani Hima, a V-Dere talent, turned a hand-cam stream into a Japanese tea time, brewing green tea on camera and using it to talk about the tea ceremony she learned in kindergarten.

She started late, apologizing to viewers who had waited, then walked through the preparation: measuring the leaves with a makeshift scoop because she had no proper spoon, and warming the cup with hot water first. She said water around 80 degrees suits green tea better than the hotter water used for British tea. She paired the tea with three-colored dango from a supermarket, which she called not authentic, adding that the green, white and pink pieces taste the same. The bitter tea, she said, cleansed her palate for the sweets.

“I think I’m a very, very Japanese girl.” — Hani Hima, on her upbringing

Chat joined in with their own tea and coffee pairings, and she answered a question about the difference between green tea and matcha, calling green tea fresher and matcha more powdery and bitter.

The tea led to her childhood. Her kindergarten offered classes including kendo and a tea ceremony, she said, where children sat on tatami and passed sweets along with a formal exchange of greetings. She also described a mixing technique she was taught for making a small island in the tea’s foam. She credited a family friend who taught her tea ceremony with sparking her love of cooking, and recalled her grandmother’s lessons in flower arranging and kimono dressing.

Later in the stream she said she had few friends at school but has many now, and called this the happiest period of her life. She opened a fish-sausage gacha snack hoping for a Chiikawa card, showed a teapot she found after an hour or two of searching in Tokyo’s Kappabashi area, and recommended the Jindai area of Tokyo, where she said soba restaurants and dango shops surround a temple. She closed by thanking viewers and calling it a super tea time.