Category: Tea Ceremony

In response to Dancing Elephants Prompt 18 of 52

Photo by Author Akemi Sagawa

Can you guess what these objects are? 

How long do you think it took me to make these nine objects?

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A young friend of mine asked me to serve her a bowl of tea.  She was battling cancer, going through a series of chemotherapy, while raising two little kids.    I’d be delighted, I responded.

What can I do to give her the best experience?  I decided, why not make sweets, the appetizer and the companion for a bowl of Matcha green tea, myself rather than buying!

Having never made this type of sweets, I asked my teacher for advice.  She recommended this YouTube video, so I decided to follow its instruction.

The day before the tea gathering, following the video, I prepared ingredients for the sweets: white bean paste and black bean paste. 

I colored portions of the white bean paste in pink, orange, yellow, blue, and purple.  I stacked the white, colored, white again, and black bean paste.  Then I shaped it like a ball, wrapping the black bean paste with the outer layer of white bean paste.

Then time to engrave the surface of the ball shape sweets, using a toothpick. One line at a time.  First you carve four lines to create the shape of the cross.  Then you carve in the middle of the two lines to divide the space into eight.  Then again divide it into 16. 

Switch the side of the toothpick, and make a slit in between the lines in the different direction. Carve the lines deep enough to show the colored portion, but not too deep to show the black bean paste. 

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The moment my mind meandered and started to think about something different, the tip of the toothpick meandered, too.  In order to carve straight, I had to empty my mind.  It was meditative.  My mind and my hands were in harmony. 

Yes, it was a tedious process.  It took me three hours to make these nine pieces from start to finish.   But I felt good.  The next day my friend enjoyed the sweets.

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Almost six months on, my friend is cancer free.  Maybe my sweets helped her a little bit?

14^th century Japan was wild

Image of Muso Kokushi : Public Domain – Wiki Media

Out of the thousands of Buddhist temples in Kyoto, both Tenryuji Temple and Saihoji Temple are among the most famous for the beauty of their gardens.  Steve Jobs used to visit Saihoji Temple, now well known for its beautiful moss garden, quite often with his family. 

Zen Master Muso Kokushi (夢窓国師 1275 – 1351) designed both gardens.  It is said that Saihoji Temple’s garden designed by Muso Kokushi is the oldest Japanese rock garden called Kare Sansui (枯山水). 

Muso Kokushi was a highly respected Zen Master, and mentored Ashikaga Takauji (足利尊氏 1305 – 1358), the first Shogun in Ashikaga Shogunate and his brother Ashikaga Tadayoshi (足利直義 1307 – 1352). 

In the dialogue between Tadayoshi, Muso Kokushi criticized sharply about then faddish tea gambling.  Muso Kokushi himself loved the custom of drinking Matcha, not as a means for gambling, but as a useful tool to deepen his Zen practice. 

Muso Kokushi saw something in common, something spiritual, among the practice of Zen, Japanese rock garden, and the ritual of serving Matcha.

Source: Muchu Mondou (夢中問答)

First principle: Harmony

There are four principles that each tea practitioner has to have in mind whenever we practice the Japanese tea ceremony.

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和(wa)

“Wa” means harmony.  Over a bowl of tea, the host and the guests collaborate to create a harmonious experience together.  In order to best serve the guests, the host carefully chooses the utensils appropriate for the occasion. 

The scroll, the incense container, the flower vase, and the flowers.  All the things placed in the alcove in the tea ceremony symbolize some theme for the occasion.  So do the tea bowls and all the other tea utensils.  Nothing has the same design, but everything in the tearoom is in harmony.

敬(kei)

“Kei” means respect.  Respect is the sincerity of heart that liberates us for an open relationship with other people, regardless of their appearance or status. 

In the tearoom, a high-ranking samurai and a merchant would be equally treated.  They show respect by bowing to each other.  Respect is expressed not only between people but to our surroundings, nature, and everything that is enabling us to experience our lives.

清(sei)

“Sei” means purity.  The host purifies the tea container and the tea scoop meticulously with the silk cloth.  The host also cleans the tea bowl with hot water and a small white cloth.  Everything is spick and span before the guests arrive, but the purification process continues during the tea service and when storing the utensils afterward in front of the guests.

The guests cleanse their hands and mouths before entering the tearoom.  Through the simple act of cleaning, they clear “the dust of the world.”  The guests clear worldly attachments from their hearts and minds.  Only after putting aside material concerns, can they sense the pure and sacred essence of things, human beings, and nature.

寂(jaku)

“Jaku” means tranquility.  Tranquility is not merely silence.  It is the status of the heart and mind that is liberated from any worldly attachment. It’s the ultimate freedom!

Wa, Kei, Sei, Jaku… Over a bowl of tea, tea practitioners enjoy this profound life experience. 

14th-century Japan was wild!  

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

Matcha drinking as gambling?  How can it be, you may wonder. 

After Eisai brought Matcha to Japan in the 13^th century, growing tea trees spread from Kyoto to various regions in Japan.   The custom of drinking Matcha also spread from among Zen monks to a much wider audience like samurais, then the ruling class, and also among rich merchants.

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History tells us that by the 14^th century in Japan, samurais and wealthy merchants turned Matcha tea tastings into lavish gambling events often called Tocha (闘茶). 

Not all Matcha tastes exactly the same.  Matcha made from tea leaves that are grown in one region tastes different from those grown in other regions.  People would bring several Matcha made in different regions, taste them blindfolded, let’s say four kinds of Matcha, 10 bowls at random order, and try to guess which bowl was made from the same Matcha. 

The person who guessed most correctly would win. 

The prize of Tocha would be such precious items as a vase imported from China or extravagant silk garments. Often these Tocha events would accompany elaborate banquets as well as a lot of sake drinking.

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Tocha became so extreme that then ruling Ashikaga clan even banned such events in 1336.  This type of gambling with Matcha, however, remained popular for another hundred years or so.

Source: Omotesenke Website

It’s all about gratitude and respect

Photo by Author Akemi Sagawa

In my previous article, I showed you how to enjoy Matcha at home.  I hope my tips worked for you.

You made a bowl of matcha, with fine foam on the surface.  Your mouth is filled with sweetness.  Now you are ready to drink the green liquid.

But wait!  Let’s deepen your experience by adding these 5 tips. 

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Hold your tea bowl with both hands

Feel the warmth of the bowl.  Look at the light green, silky foam.  Inhale to enjoy the aroma – Just like you swirl the glass before you sip wine.

Bow a little

While holding the bowl with both hands, bow a little to show respect to someone who made the tea (it’s you!), people who took the effort to grow the tea leaves and to make them into Matcha, and nature that provides us with clean, pure water.

Turn the bowl twice

If the bowl has some design and it’s facing you, turn the bowl clockwise a little so that you avoid touching your lips on the front design.

Now you are ready to have the sip.  Enjoy!

Make a noise at the last sip

The tea is almost gone in the bowl.  You can make a little noise when you have the last sip.  It’s a sign that you enjoyed the tea so much and you are done.

Take a closer look at your bowl

Turn the bowl counterclockwise so that the front design is facing you again.  While holding it with both hands, take a closer look at the bowl.  Do you know who made it?  Even though the bowl is manufactured in a factory, someone must have handled this bowl.  Think about that person and thank them for their efforts to make it. 

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In the Japanese tea ceremony, you will be doing these five gestures as a guest with more formal steps.  The purpose of each little gesture is to show gratitude and respect to the host and to your surroundings. 

It reminds you that you are not living alone, that even this little bowl of tea wouldn’t have been made available without so many people’s and nature’s involvement. 

By taking a little extra time to add these gestures, I hope your teatime will become an opportunity to experience deep gratitude and respect, enriching your life. 

Hatsugama – New Year tea gathering in a 8-tatami-mat room: Photo by Author Akemi Sagawa

Can you guess what I had to learn first to practice Japanese tea ceremony?

No, it’s not how to make Matcha.
No, it’s not how to drink Matcha.

The very first thing I had to learn was how to sit, stand, and walk on tatami mats properly.

The image above is a part of the 4-and-a-half tatami-mat tea room, a typical size.  In the center of the room, there is a kettle for hot water.

Before you enter the room, you sit down on your knees in front of the closed sliding door. You slide it open, bow to the guests, stand up straight, and place your left foot just outside the tatami mat. 

The first step you enter into the tatami mat should always be your right foot (1). 

You place your left foot a little forward (2), turn around with your right foot (3), put both feet together (4 and 5), and sit down, and close the sliding door.

Once you close the sliding door, you stand up, step your feet so that you move your body 90 degrees (6 and 7), step forward with your left foot (8), and step into the next tatami with your right foot (9). 

Walk forward, left (10) and right (11), then move back diagonally and put together your feet (12 and 13), and sit down.

In Urasenke School, the general rule for walking on the tatami mat room for is:

• When you come in, always step the next tatami mat with your right foot.
• When you go out, always step the next tatami mat with your left foot.
• In order to walk on half a tatami mat, you take four steps.

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At first, I didn’t understand why we have to be so strict about our footsteps.  How tedious!  What does it have to do with serving tea?

After practicing tea ceremony for several years, I came to realize the importance of keeping our body movement smooth, as well as rhythmical.  The movement is not always at the same tempo.  Sometimes we make a swift move, sometimes we move rather slowly.  Overall, each movement has to look beautiful. 

You move your body beautifully, with certain rhythms, and tempos.  Isn’t it what dancing is?

When I realized this simple fact, my tea ceremony practice was stepped up one notch.  When I serve tea, I’m performing dancing!

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At Hatsugama 初釜, the New Year tea gathering, my teacher served this beautiful and delicious meal for every one of us students.  She spent hours preparing for it the day before.  Thank you very much, Mrs. Takemura, my dear teacher!

Tips for making a delicious bowl of tea

Photo by Author Akemi Sagawa

Now that I see Matcha green tea sold in most grocery stores in the US, I assume many people drink it at home.  Are you one of them?

If you would like to enjoy Matcha in a similar way as served in the Japanese tea ceremony but skip all the formal procedures, well, here are some tips!

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Have Sweets First

One thing you don’t want to miss when enjoying Matcha…. Sweets!

You have some sweets BEFORE having Matcha.  Why?

When making Matcha, you simply mix Matcha with hot water.  You don’t put sugar or milk in it.  Even though you have Matcha of high quality, it has some bitterness.  You want to prepare your pallet by filling some sweetness in your mouth beforehand. 

Sweets are like appetizers.  The main course is Matcha!

In Japan, there are literally thousands of different kinds of sweets to be accompanied by Matcha. Many of them are made of sweetened bean paste called “an.” (Have you seen a movie called “Sweet Bean”?) Some sweets are dried sugar candies. 

If you can’t find any Japanese sweets nearby, no problem. Pick your favorite sweets.  A piece of chocolate goes well, especially a white chocolate truffle.  Another of my favorite is macaroon. 

What you need

Once you have enjoyed your appetizer, let’s move on to the main course. 

You need a bowl, Matcha, a small scoop, a whisk, and of course hot water. The photo shows you the real tea utensils, but you can substitute them with what you find in your kitchen, except for matcha powder. If you can’t find a bamboo tea whisk, a small mixing whisk might work.

One piece of advice is that you sift Matcha powder before making tea.  Often times Matcha powder is cramped in the package.  When you take it out of the original package, sift it so that the powder is smooth.

Warm the bowl

First warm the bowl with hot water. Pour a little bit of hot water into the bowl, and swirl around the bowl so that the heat of the water is transferred to the bowl.  Once the bowl is warmed up, discard the water. Unless the bowl is very wet, you can skip wiping it.

Put Matcha

Put Matcha into the bowl, two scoops if you are using the bamboo scoop.  Or about one teaspoon full.

Pour Water

Pour hot water into the bowl, about 50cc.   Pour water quietly, so that Matcha doesn’t scatter around. 

 Whisk

Then you hold the tea bowl with your left hand, pick up a whisk with your right hand, and start whisking.

Another tip… Using your wrist, move the whisk up and down, up and down, quickly.   You want to create a nice fine foam on the surface.  Do not circle the whisk around in the bowl. If you circle around the whisk, you won’t be able to create nice foam.

Why create form on the surface, you might ask. 

The foam mitigates the bitterness.  With the sweet as an appetizer, and with the fine foam created by whisking, you get to taste Matcha at its best condition! 

Enjoy the tea!

Once the fine foam is created, it’s time to enjoy the main course!   Place your left hand under the bowl, and your right hand on the side of the bowl. Enjoy!

They all come from the same tea tree.

Matcha Green Tea in Natsume Tea Container: Photo by Author Akemi Sagawa

Matcha, sencha, genmaicha, hojicha, … Now I see a wide variety of green teas even here in Seattle.  It seems to be a thing of the past that green tea used to be a signature drink of Japan.

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What’s the difference between those teas?  Are they made from different types of tea trees?  You may wonder.

Actually, they are all made from the same species, Camellia sinensis. The difference lies in how the trees are grown and how the tea leaves are processed.

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Tea leaves contain theanine, a kind of amino acid that generates its rich flavor.  Theanine is known to suppress the stimulant effects that caffeine has.  Once the tea leaves are kept under strong sunlight, theanine changes to catechin, which causes a bitter flavor.

Just before the new leaves come out, tea growers cover the trees for about 20 days to avoid strong sunlight.  The new leaves that are grown under the cover retain the most theanine, yielding a sweeter taste.  The new leaves generate more chlorophyll for photosynthesis to compensate for less sunlight, hence the leaves have a more vivid green color.

Only the first three or four leaves that were grown under the cover are handpicked, steamed right away to avoid fermentation, and ground finely to finally make matcha.

The extra process and care make matcha’s magical color, aroma, and flavor. 

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Sencha leaves are grown under normal sunlight.  Most theanine turns to catechin, producing a more bitter taste.  Much wider parts of new leaves are used, and the leaves can be machine-picked for sencha.  Just like with matcha, the leaves are immediately steamed to avoid fermentation.  Since the leaves and stems are larger and thicker than matcha, sencha leaves are kneaded during the drying process. 

By adding brown rice, sencha becomes genmaicha.  By lightly roasting sencha, hojicha is made. 

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Sometimes sencha is ground finely and sold as powdered green tea.  As you can imagine, this type of powdered green tea is far from matcha.  The color is not as vivid green as matcha, and it tastes much more bitter than matcha. 

It is understandable why matcha is much more expensive than other kinds of green tea.  If you would like to enjoy a bowl of tea simply by mixing with hot water, make sure to choose good quality matcha.  Cheaper powdered green tea is better to be mixed in cookies or cakes.

Thanks to Mr. Sen Genshitsu for his devotion to promoting “Peacefulness through a Bowl of Tea”

View of Seattle: Photo by Author Akemi Sagawa

As long as I was growing up and living in Japan, the Japanese tea ceremony was a synonym for “outdated” in my perception.     Just like Ikebana, I started practicing tea ceremony only after I moved to Seattle.

You may wonder how it’s possible to learn such a traditional culture in a city so far away from Japan. 

I’m forever thankful to a person for giving me and many people such an opportunity.  

His name is Sen Genshitsu, 千玄室, the fifteenth-generation grand master of the Urasenke School of Japanese Tea.  Now that his son has taken over as the current grand master (Iemoto), we call him “Daisosho.”

In 1923, Daisosho was born in Kyoto as the first son of the 14th-generation grandmaster of Urasenke. During World War II, he served in the air force division of the Japanese navy. His division was also called “Kamikaze Tokkotai,” a special brigade of suicide pilots. 

His colleagues in the division took off on a mission of no return.  Daisosho would serve a bowl of tea to his colleagues before their last flights.  Daisosho was also ready to die, but the war was over before he took off his own last flight.  Among his division, only he and another person survived.   

After the war, Daisosho took up his mission to promote world peace through a bowl of tea.  In 1950 he visited Hawaii and established the first Urasenke overseas study group.  Since then, he has made more than three hundred trips overseas and visited over 60 countries. Daisosho also established a training course for the tea ceremony for foreign students in Kyoto.  More than 500 alumni returned to their home countries and many are spreading the Urasenke teachings worldwide. 

Seattle is one of the cities that benefited Daisosho’s dedication to promoting “peacefulness through a bowl of tea.”  Urasenke donated the tea house in Seattle Japanese Garden as well as in Seattle Art Museum.  There are active teachers and study groups here in Seattle.  Chado Urasenke Tankokai Seattle Association, or Seattle Tankokai for short, has just celebrated its 50^th anniversary this summer. 

About 10 years ago I joined one of the study groups, then joined Seattle Tankokai.  There people with various backgrounds gather regularly and learn the way of tea, a simple act of serving a bowl of tea. 

At the age of 99 this year, Daisosho is still actively hosting dignitaries from many countries. 

By serving another person a bowl of tea, we realize that we are all humans, regardless of nationality, race, or ethnicity. Thanks to Daisosho’s life experience and the mission he has taken up, I am able to learn the essence of the tea ceremony here in Seattle.

It shows you how a formal tea gathering is conducted.

Photo by Chado Urasenke Tankokai Seattle Association

“What is Japanese Tea Ceremony?” 

I don’t know how many times I have tried to answer this question in a short blog post, and each time I have failed miserably. 

No matter how I start the sentence, I always give up explaining the whole aspects of tea ceremony.  My writing ability is just not mature enough to condense it in short sentences or even paragraphs.

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Fortunately, Medium allows me to post as many articles as I wish.  No page limits, no rigid rules on how long or how short each article should be.  I can include photos or even videos to supplement my lack of vocabulary or literary expression.

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In tea ceremony, people gather to enjoy a bowl of tea.  There are range of formalities of how to conduct such a tea gathering.

The most formal tea gathering includes serving a light meal, sake, sweets, and two types of Matcha green tea.  It takes about 3-4 hours to conduct the whole process.

Our purpose to practice tea ceremony is fundamentally to conduct this formal tea gathering in the most enjoyable manner. 

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Our tea ceremony study group, Chado Urasenke Tankokai Seattle Association, created a video titled “Invitation to Chakai.”

Chakai (茶会) means a tea gathering in Japanese. 

This 25-minute video describes how a typical formal tea gathering progresses in a condensed format. 

By watching this video, hopefully you’ll get the idea of how a formal chakai is conducted. 

Enjoy the video!  If you have any question, please feel free to comment.