UCHINA CAFÉ BUKU-BUKU — Restaurant in Naha

Lovely staff whose friendly and patience! It’s a small pottery store cum cafe that serve nice drinks, snacks and dessert! We order a traditional tea and a red bean shaved ice with brown sugar. The traditional tea was served with traditional sweets such as biscuits and pastry! The traditional tea taste really interesting! The tea is made from jasmine tea roasted with rice and top with foam. The foam is made by vigorously whisking a large bowl of tea with hard water with a wooden whisk. The staff will invite you to a counter to see how they make the traditional tea. She will whisk the foam and explain to you how it’s made. She would even teach you how to drink the tea! You have to hold the tea straight and take a slip of the tea. If you tilt it the foam will touch your nose! If you are have trouble to drink the tea cause of the foam you can use the wooden spoon provided. It’s a good experience! The traditional sweets blend well with the tea! As for the shaved ice, it’s really light and refreshing! The ice were shaved very fine and they were quite generous with the red beans. We had a great time! You can have a look at their potteries for sale they are very...

Okinawa Ice Zenzai with Brown Sugar Syrup (¥800): This shaved ice dessert comes topped with red kidney beans and rice flour dumplings, all simmered in brown cane sugar. The ice is finely shaved, melting instantly on the tongue while releasing a rich, sweet brown sugar flavour. Its cooling effect was perfect for the heat, and the accompanying cup of hot tea warmed me up whenever the chill got too intense!

Golden Latte (¥650): A creamy, turmeric-based milk latte made with Okinawan turmeric, sugar cane, and ginger from Kochi. Its flavour was reminiscent of chai, with a comforting warmth. Paired with Chinsuko cookies, this drink was soul-soothing and perfect to balance the coldness of...

If you come to Okinawa, you should try the buku buku tea at least once!! The cloud like tea foam is made out of pure tea water (hard mineral water) and hard whipping. Nutty and grainy flavour of tea matches very well with tea cookies as well. The shaved ice can be quite alien to people who are not friendly with asian dessert (sweatened whole beans are laying beneath ice). However, the condensed milk and okinawa local treacle syrup combination is very refreshing and pleasing. Even the way they are served, they come out in very pretty Yachimoon potteries.

Overall, I had a nice break with cultural experience. Strongly...