#taking tea

Taking Tea

Juan Pablo Salinas (1871-1946, Spanish) ~ Taking Tea, n/d 

T H E   A R T   O F   R E A D I N G

My aunt and uncle have a gorgeous garden!  They very kindly let me set up an afternoon tea scene this summer, using their flower filled garden as a background.  I have posted some images from that afternoon before, but I finally posted the others today on Flickr. 

I know officially it’s autumn in the UK now... but I’m still enjoying my memories of summer!

Here are some of the other images I posted a few months back, related to this afternoon tea scene and the blue china tea set.

Suddenly

This is a Japanese Tea House designed and built by architect Terunobu Fujimori.  It rests on top of two chestnut trees, only accessible by thin ladders.

The tea house is called Takasugi-an (meaning a teahouse too high). Terunobu Fujimori’s tea house can be found in Chino, Nagano Prefecture, Japan.

A Japanese tea house is often a small simple wooden building in a garden or the grounds of private home.  They can also be found in the grounds of temples, museums, and parks. The small tea house will have one main room where the host serves their guests tea, and a mizuya (a water room) where the host prepares the sweets and equipment.

This is another one of Terunobu Fujimori’s tea houses surrounded by gorgeous cherry trees.  I’d be delighted to drink tea in this fairy tale tree house any day!! 

The tea traditionally consumed in these houses is called Matcha.  It’s made by finely grinding green tea leaves to a powder.  Here’s a demonstration on how to make it.

You can see Terunobu Fujimori climbing up those skinny ladders to his tea house in this video.  Unfortunately there’s no subtitles for this film, but you do at least get to see inside.

So....would you be happy to drink tea in one of these little too high tea houses?