A Japanese Tea Ceremony

Today a few of my new Japanese friends took me to Sankeien Garden in Yokohama. This is a traditional Japanese-style garden designed and landscaped by Senkei Hara (a penname for Tomitaro Hara), a wealthy businessman in the silk trade. He reconstructed famous historical buildings from Kyoto and Kamakura in his garden, which opened to the public in 1906. Today, we were lucky enough to visit during plum blossom viewing season.

My friend Keiko has a friend--also Keiko (seen in this photo)--who performs a tea ceremony in the Senkeien Memorial Building. This ceremony was rather casual, although from what I understand many tea ceremonies can be very formal affairs. Today, we watched a 10-minute demonstration of how to make tea and then it was served to us. It is a ritual of several steps to invoke harmony, respect, purity and tranquility. You first eat one of two sweets that are given to you. They are the size of a quarter. (I ate the second one on the way home I was so hungry.) Then the tea master prepares the tea from a high-quality green tea powder, with many proper hand placements and several turns of the tea cup. Then the tea is presented with a bow to the guest, who returns the bow and drinks it with the front of the cup turned slightly away from the lips, in 3 to 4 sips. Oishi. Bitter tea is the perfect match for the intensely sweet treat.

Then they said it was my turn! I thought they were kidding...but you see the photos for yourself. Here I am a tea master. I am laughing because everyone else is laughing at me at this point, since I wasn't whisking fast enough and the tea master had to show me. But other than that, I think most people were in harmony at the end of my demonstration.

That must be why I was quickly promoted to tea sensei! Just when I thought I had surpassed my wildest self-expectations in tea mastery, I was told it was my turn to teach the tea ceremony to my friends. So, here I am--a tea sensei to my friends Akiko-san and Keiko-san! You can see I am bright red...it is the Japanese way to humble yourself and be embarrassed in front of others. But I wonder if they knew that I wasn't doing it to be polite. It was all about the harmony. And the fun!