Noodles ── Soba
Cha Soba
Cha-soba — soba noodles kneaded with powdered green tea
A kawari-soba made by kneading powdered green tea, often matcha, into the buckwheat dough. It takes on a faint green tint along with tea's own aroma. It is said to be one of the playful noodle variations devised during the Bunka-Bunsei era (1804–30), alongside yuzu-flavored soba.
Lineage
What it's made of
The dough is kneaded with matcha or powdered green tea, taking on a faint green color while the tea's own aroma layers over buckwheat's. Using pale sarashina flour as the base is said to make the green show up especially well, and that visual coolness is one reason the noodle is favored.
How it's made
Matcha or powdered green tea is worked into the dough alongside the water and flour while it is being made. Because the color is prone to streaking, getting it to come through evenly is said to take care in how thoroughly the tea and flour are blended. Many shops use pale sarashina flour as their base for the same reason — it lets the color show up cleanly.
Why it took this shape
Cha-soba is said to be one of the kawari-soba variations devised during the Bunka-Bunsei era, when Edo's food culture reached a kind of maturity, alongside yuzu-flavored and mugwort noodles. Counted among the vividly colored irimono, it is said to rank as one of the more playful noodle variations — enjoyed, it is said, as much by eye and nose as by taste.
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Dishes in the same style
- Baniku SobaFrom the Aso area of Kumamoto: hot soba topped with horse meat simmered sweet and salty. It's said to carry the history of a region where horse meat took root as a restorative food for the injured and ill.
- Echizen Oroshi SobaA cold soba from Echizen, Fukui, topped with grated daikon and bonito flakes. It is said to originate with a soba maker a local lord brought from Kyoto to promote buckwheat as an emergency food crop.