Wow, lots of questions! 8)
1. I used a blend of Amarillo, Centennial, and Liberty for the hop tea and mash hopping, and a blend of Amarillo, Cascade, and Centennial for the first wort hopping and all the rest of the hops.
2. Mash hopping means adding hops directly to the mash. In this case I used Amarillo, Centennial, and Liberty pellets. Benefits are supposed to be incredible hop flavor and aroma from the mash hops, which makes them similar to first wort hops.
3. "Hop tea" means that I took all of the brew water, heated it to 170F, and then ran it through a hopback (got my hop back from More Beer). The hopback had 0.75 oz each of Centennial, Amarillo, and Liberty whole hops. The water turned bright green and smelled like . . . er . . . fresh hops!
4. It's all-grain. Partial mashing would work, and you could even do a good job with extract, although you'd lose the mash hops. Basically all I did was add hops at ever conceivable step of the brewing process -- do that and you'll have something close.
5. For the last 20+ years, I've been coming from Japan. This is my first trip to my hometown in Michigan in four years. I'm looking forward to it.
Cheers,
cj