Tea Ceremony

Some of the tea ceremony students and members of the University club.







On Wednesday afternoon, we were treated to another traditional Japanese experience, the tea ceremony. It turns out that this university has several clubs, one of which practices the centuries old discipline of serving tea. When I lived in Wakayama, I remember hearing about the extremely refined motions and significance of every gesture in the ceremony, but never was able to experience it myself. So I was super excited to go through the ceremony for the first time in Sapporo with my classmates. Because the master and her students of the club were primarily fluent in Japanese, we were thankfully taken to the club by our new friends Tomo and Eriko, who translated all of the details of the ceremony for us. (arigatou!)



Tomo and Eriko enjoying a drink!



Our class, looking our finest, aka before our legs hurt!



I think that both Tomo and Eriko were also relatively new to participating in the tea ceremony , and were excited like us to learn about its intricate details. I'm writing this on Saturday, but my legs still hurt from having to sit in the traditional - and expected - position of having one's legs underneath the body. This sitting position is brutally difficult to maintain for me, so I made sure to post a picture of when I could actually sit correctly! Special thanks to Eriko for taking most of these photos

The parts of the ceremony which I remember include:

1. The careful and deliberate actions of the tea server in preparing the tea.

2. The deliberate rotating and positioning of the cup of tea by us, the recipients.

3. The step of observing and appreciating the artwork of the teacup itself. (pictures included)

4. The bowing at several key stages to thank the server for bringing the tea, and for taking the empty cup away.

5. The deliberate slurping to signify having finished one's drink.

If I've forgotten anything, hopefully my classmates can fill in the blanks! :-)

Each of us had a different cup, from a different maker, with a different design.