#omotesenke

There is so much I could weite about the tea practice in January. After joining usucha and koicha as a guest, I got to join kagetsu. It is kind of a game where you draw lots to decide who will prepare the matcha and who will drink it. We do this really rearly because the rules are a bit hard to understand and only a few people know them fully.

Please don’t ask me for details. Even though I did it four times already now, I don’t understand them. To me it feels like they are always a bit different. But that’s probably because I always don’t remember the last time. Anyhow, it is really fun and creates an easygoing atmosphere.

Even though I prepared a matcha during kagetsu, I also got to practice a separate temae. We used a self called jouou-dana as we usually do during January. It has some tweaks to it.

The mizusashi is inside behind the right door. You pull it out only 1/3. And you have to do this right at the beginning. Otherwise other utensils will get in the way and you won’t be able to get it out.

You always open the doors with two hands and start with the hand that is further away.

Even though this self is used with the winter kettle the natsume and chasen are placed in the center of the self.

The lit of the mizusashi is place outside on the left side.

At the end, the hishaku and futaoki are decorated inside the self behind the left door.

When you fill up the mizusashi with water, you pull it out completely. At this time, the lit is place above it and inside the groove of the self.

I joined my current sensei last year January. Starting to use the same utensils like last year again really makes me feel how time flies. I am really thankful and learned so much in this year.

Also btw, for koicha I could join the special tea room from last time again. How blessed can one be?! 😌

When and where is this event taking place?

The event is usually held on two weekends in October. On the first weekend it is held at the Hamarikyu-Gien and on the second weekend at the Edo Tokyo Architecture Open Air Museum.

Note: I only went to the tea ceremony at Edo Tokyo Architecture Open Air Museum.

Some impressions of the museum’s show houses.

How to get tickets?

There are different kinds of tea ceremonies to participate it. Indoor, Outdoor Nodate, for Children and Indoor with English commentary.

The Indoor one is probably the most formal one. Tickets for this one are only available via a lottery which has to be booked a few month in advance! I had no idea about that, but I wasn’t genuinely surprised to be honest.

Tickets for all the other ones are sold on the day. Yet I would recommend to arrive at least before noon, because once the seats are sold out, they are gone.

When we arrived at 11am we could only get tickets for the Outdoor Nodate or Indoor with English commentary slots at 3pm and later. Everything before that was already sold out.

What to expect?

It’s the perfect occasion to get in touch with tea ceremony in a semi-formal way. Some participant seemed a bit more familiar but everything was explained very well. We got a little sheet with information about the guests manners. Additionally, they explained everything during the tea ceremony itself as well. But I have to admit that both explanations didn’t matched 100%. Let’s just say you’ll be guides through everything.

Each slot was about 25 minutes. You will get a Japanese wagashi and a bowl of matcha. As I would expect, this event was hold by the Urasenke school. It’s usually like this, since Urasenke seems to be more present in general.

Next to the tea ceremony events they also have some additional cultural program you can join for free. We went to a little classical concert in an old bath house. As one can imagine, the acoustics where unbelievable.

The bath house as venue for a concert.

What it worth it?

For me, every experience around tea ceremony is worth it. But to be honest, for how fast the event is sold out, the slot was over just to fast. 25 minutes is really not that long. So I tried to observe every move. But once I got my wagashi I was so distracted haha.

As for learnings, I took this as an opportunity to spot some differences between Urasenke and Omotesenke. This is a fun practice and helps to consolidate all the steps. The overall order what is done is almost identical. It’s more how each step is performed is sometimes SO different.

And I always love to see all the different kinds of utensils. They all had a very autumn-ish touch which fitted the occasion very well.

Some impressions of the utensils.

Additionally to all the tea ceremony experience, the location was really interesting. And on that day entrance to the Edo Tokyo Architectural Open Air Museum was completely free. So we spend our waiting time exploring all these old houses and joining the other programs I mentioned earlier. That definitely added up to the experience in a whole.

The tea party took place at a temple in Kita-Kamakura - the same one where I attended my first tea party as a guest in summer. Around 8am everyone else was arriving and we were allowed to join a ceremony with the monks.

9:00 AM - The First Session Starts

Each session one of us would perform the temae we were practicing the last weeks. And the other ones would help in the mizuya - preparing or cleaning stuff - or as hanto - bringing the sweets plates and tea bowls in and out of the tea room. My teacher would sit close to the exit of the tea room and talk to the guests. Each session took 45 minutes and consisted of 12 guests. We had 9 sessions, so we served 108 guests in total.

The guests were kind of random people. The temple announced on their website that they’ll hold a tea ceremony and people could apply for a seat. Some of them were acquaintances of our teachers, like other teachers and their students. But for most of us students they were unknown people.

Each and everyone of us was super nervous. Therefore, the first session was the toughest one. But everyone was putting in their hearts and we improved tiny details with each session. Since it would take a lot of time to prepare 12 bowl of matcha by the temae in side the tea room, they would only prepare the matcha for the first and second guest, also known as shokyaku and jikyaku. The matcha for the third guest and everyone else would be prepared in the mizuya. As hanto, which is basically an assistant, each session started quite busy, because we would bring in the sweets plates and had to pick them up a few moments later. Afterwards, we had kind of a waiting period until it was time to prepare additional matcha bowls. And then it would get quite busy again, since we had to bring the bowls in the tea room and of course pick them up again.

12:00 PM - My Turn

Just two sessions before it was my turn to be temae, I started to get super nervous. At some point it sat down and went through all the steps in my head and kind of mimicked the movements with my hands. One of the older students told me, that there's no need to do that and it'll all go well. And it kind of did. At the beginning I almost dropped the hishaku. But besides that, I made no bigger mistake. At one point, I realised I took the tea bowl with the wrong hand. But than I remembered what one of my teacher told me: If you notice you make a mistake, just act like you didn't and it's just "how we do things". And well, nobody probably even noticed it. My teacher also talked with the guests about me not being Japanese but still having a big passion for tea ceremony. She even praised my teacher in Germany and myself as well. This was a little awkward while being in the room, but I might just not be good with compliments in general.

Afterwards, I got a little break which we all took in turns. We had ordered bentos with some traditional Japanese food for that day. I was lucky to have my temae session before eating. I guess otherwise I would have not been able to get any food into my body.

4:00 PM - Finally Done

Around 4pm we finished the last session and everyone got really happy and relaxed. We talked about everything that happened, took pictures, drank matcha and also started to tidy everything up. My teachers and a lot of the guest brought some gifts for us, which we divided into little bags to take them home. And by 6pm most of us left the temple and started our way back home.