Seiko Tomizawa -- Oshare Tea Time（おしゃれTEA TIME）

 

There wasn't much that I missed out on in terms of gastronomic delights during my days in Japan, but one thing that I did miss out on to my regret is Afternoon Tea. Wait, J-Canuck...you will say...Traditional Afternoon Tea is a British thing, ain't it? Yeah, it is, but with a lot of Japanese more than happy to grab onto foreign culinary customs, there are those folks who have cottoned onto the British tea, those dainty cucumber sandwiches, and the scones with the clotted cream and jam.

Of course, I'm into my meatier sandwiches but I can go with the cucumber variety, and I will always enjoy scones with cream...oh, and the tea, too.☕ It's just that I also wanted to experience the atmosphere that goes with the tea. There have been hotels in Tokyo that offer Afternoon Tea and my closest bet was a tea room near one of my schools which I frequented often, pretty much weekly. Unfortunately, the other dishes there were so good that I simply couldn't give those up.

In any case, all that preamble ramble was there to introduce "Oshare Tea Time" (Stylish Tea Time), a track from singer-songwriter Seiko Tomizawa's（富沢聖子）1983 release "Melody Palette". Tomizawa already has a couple of articles on KKP for her anison work, but this release seems to be on her straight pop stuff. I do love the cover whose iconography seems to be hearkening back to 60s pop album aesthetics and from far away, Tomizawa even resembles aidoru Yu Hayami（早見優）.

Tomizawa wrote and composed "Oshare Tea Time" with Jun Sato（佐藤準）providing an arrangement with a tropical summer twist. There's perhaps a hint of sophisticated City Pop in the intro and whispering throughout the song, but I've still thrown in the general pop category in Labels. I don't quite know who's backing her up in the vocals department. From what I've seen at Discogs, "Melody Palette" is either a maxi-single (the playing speed is 45 rpm rather than the usual 33 1/3 rpm for LPs) or a mini-album since it just has a total of six tracks on the two sides.