Vegan Ochazuke Nori since 1952

After posting the article about Shin Ramen, I remembered another product confirmed to be vegan by a consumer on the Internet. It is Ochazuke Nori by Nagatanien (永谷園) that may be known to most Japanese people. Ochazuke is a traditional quick meal made by pouring green tea on boiled rice. As toppings, you can put pickles, dried seaweed (nori), or some other things you like. Nagatanien’s Ochazuke Nori contains flavored powder, dried seaweed, and rice crackers, making it much easier to prepare ochazuke. This product contains 8 small bags, one for each portion. The design of colorful stripes was inspired by a Kabuki curtain and presents the atmosphere of the Edo period (1603-1868).

I made ochazuke as instructed. All you need to do is to put the contents in the bag on boiled rice (100g),

and pour hot water (150 cc). I used my miso soup bowl instead of rice bowl. Fortunately, it was big enough.

The soup powder contained salt, sugar, powdered green tea, and powdered kelp. The soup was a bit salty but tasty. I thought it may be ok to drink as it is without rice since it reminded me of kelp tea. The small rice crackers that got wet in the soup were also tasty. I have heard about someone who used Ochazuke Nori to make vegan spaghetti. Sounds interesting.

Ochazuke Nori is a long-selling product first released in 1952. From 1965 to 1997, a mini picture card of the “53 Stations (post towns) of the Tokaido Highway” series of Hiroshige Utagawa (1797 – 1858) was included in each package of Ochazuke series. When I was little, I used to collect such cards as many other people did. They were so popular that they came back in 2016. As I mentioned before in this blog, Hamamatsu was one of the post towns on the Tokaido Highway during the Edo period and included in this series of pictures. But I could hardly expect to get a picture of our town out of as many as 55 pictures (start point (Edo) + 53 stations + end point (Kyoto) of Tokaido). This picture on the pack is the start point, Nihonbashi in Edo (present Tokyo).

To my surprise, the card I got this time was that of Maisaka, the post town next to Hamamatsu. It is located by Lake Hamana and in West Ward of Hamamatsu now.

Until January 31, 2022, Nagatanien has a campaign where 1,000 people can win a full set of “53 Stations (post towns) of the Tokaido Highway” cards every month by collecting three application marks on packages and sending them to the company. The Ochazuke series has five flavors: dried seaweed (Ochazuke Nori), salmon, picked plum, salted cod roe, and wasabi. Ochazuke Nori is the oldest one and the only vegan one. Its name “お茶づけ海苔“ is written in the center of the pack on a yellow background while the names of other products are written on backgrounds of other colors such as pink and orange.