Tea

Rob and I went to a Tea Ceremony last weekend with his Secretary from school. She studies the tea ceremony and invited us to her class to be served and to watch what goes on in a tea ceremony. As it turned out, we saw 4 tea ceremonies two done by her and two done by another student in the class.

The room where we did the tea ceremony was a traditional style tea room. It had a hole in the tatami mat where there was a charcoal fire. You can see the container used to heat the water is hanging from the ceiling down into the hole. (all of these things have very specific names, and how you put the "utencils" has different names and styles. It's crazy how specified the tea ceremony is.

Here are the tea utencils. These were used in a special ceremony that is difficult to do. I was told it is a "challenge" Challenge translates into Japanese as Cha-le-n-gu so its pretty easy to pick that up in a conversation. So the brown pot holds the tea powder. The pot is put into this little bag before the ceremony starts. I think, part of the ceremony's difficulty is taking the pot out of the bag gracefully. Then they use the bamboo spoon/scoop to put the tea into a cup that looks like a bowl. You add hot water and wisk it up. After drinking the tea, the host cleans the utencils and then shows them to you. We admired the glaze on the pot, the shape of the bamboo scoop, and the fabric and leather tie of the bag. It was a very contenplative moment. Then I took a picture!
This particular tea was very strong and thick. I think it is very unusual because when I told my Japanese teachers they were impressed I'd tried it. I must say that I like the regular tea best.