Tea Ceremony in Japan

Listening to Koto music after the Tea Ceremony

Listening to Koto music before the Tea Ceremony

If you go to Japan, you must experience a Tea Ceremony! I was lucky to visit a Buddhist temple during my Sister Cities exchange trip to Chino, Japan.

The temple grounds are hauntingly beautiful. A community graveyard greeted us from the parking area. Then as we walked through the lush green forest, I spied little Jizo statues along the pathway, and a pond on the other side. It was so peaceful.

teagarden5

We were then ushered though the garden before entering the temple. It is common to walk across dewy ground to help rid yourself of the dust of the world prior to the start of a tea ceremony. Leaving our shoes outside, we then washed our hands in a stone basin and bowed before entering. We were asked to kneel on the side of the room. In front of us, the priest meditated, and women in beautiful yokatas played the Koto for us. If you’d like to hear what Koto music sounds like, here is a traditional example:

It was like being in another world, listening to such strange and beautiful music, while looking out the open doors to the Japanese gardens surrounding the temple.

What was also different, is that almost no words were spoken. Everyone was entranced, and meditative (amazingly since we were a group of over 20 teenagers!) Then the priest started the tea ceremony.

If you go to a tea ceremony, know that every movement is perfectly thought out, practiced, and coordinated. People take years to master the art of the tea ceremony.

First, we were given a sweet. (Most of our group couldn’t eat it. It was a bean-paste treat, that was green, and tasted overwhelmingly like toothpaste.)

Next we watched as the priest cleans all the tea serving utensils in front of us, including the tea bowl, tea scoop, and the specialized green tea whisk. All movements purposeful and graceful at the same time.

Then the priest added slowly three scoops of green tea powder per person to the tea bowl, and then a ladle of hot water. I actually had practiced a tea ceremony in my high school Japanese class, so I knew the next step would be to use the whisk to make a thin pasted with the water and green tea powder. Slowly more water is added, with more whisking, until the tea becomes soup-like and starts to froth.

Then, the priest and his assistant presents the bowl to the first person. You take a moment to view it, and lift it up a bit towards the priest to show him honor. Then rotate the “front” of the bowl (front for the priest) to you in 3 movements, so you now view the “front”. You then drink from the bowl.

If you aren’t sharing the bowl, then you’ll drink the contents in three sips, (be sure to be aware of how much liquid, you don’t want to have to have a big gulp at the end, or not enough for a third sip) and then you’ll again, rotate the front in 3 motions back to the priest so the “front” is now in front of him.

If you are sharing the bowl, you will take just a small drink, wipe the rim of the bowl and then offer the “front” of the bowl to the next person.

Afterwards, the bowl and all other instruments is cleaned in front of us, and the ceremony was over. We then went outside, and bought prayer beads, made offerings to the temple, saw the huge ceremony bell, and then posed for a group photo.