59808
A few years ago, I was doing a study abroad in Japan, and I was able to
participate in a tea ceremony. There was one instructor, our guide/translator,
and a few of us students. At this point, I had taken a few semesters of
Japanese, so I could speak alright (I thought).

The instructor made the tea and taught us how to hold the cup, the proper way
to drink from it, etc. At the end, she asked for our thoughts, and I decided
to try responding in Japanese.

I don't remember everything I said exactly, but I do remember wanting to say
something along the lines of "The tea was bitter, yet delicious." I
accidentally said this as, 「苦手ですが、美味しかったです。」 I remember the instructor gave me
a very surprised look, but our guide quickly realized what I meant and
corrected me, noting I meant 苦い, not 苦手.

When I realized what I said, I was afraid I had insulted the instructor, but
I'm not entirely sure what I actually said. How would my comment be
interpreted?

Did I say the instructor was bad at preparing the tea?  
Did I say I was bad at drinking the tea properly?  
Did I say I just didn't like tea?  
... Or did I say something else?
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-30T07:10:47.297
59807
2021-10-03T15:23:37.237
10795
question
translation
What did I say was 苦手?
> 「苦手{にがて}ですが、美味{おい}しかったです。」

As a native Japanese-speaker, the only thing I could imagine that sentence was
taken to mean would be:

> "I don't like matcha (or tea ceremonies) in general, but this one I just had
> tasted great."

It would be fairly unusual and unnatural for native speakers to take it to
mean anything else.

「苦手」, used in the context of a food/drink item, could only mean that **you do
not like it**. It simply is not your cup of tea. (No pun intended.) It just
cannot mean " **bitter** " regardless of the context. "Bitter" is 「苦{にが}い」.

Thus, you could have said:

「苦かったですが、おいしかったです。」 or

「苦かったけど、おいしかったです。」
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-30T07:28:51.843
59808
2021-10-03T15:23:37.237
2021-10-03T15:23:37.237
59807
answer