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.