Japanese Tea Ceremony

Let's look into the Japanese culture and the art of preparing tea.  The Japanese tea ceremony is called Chanoyu or Sado in Japanese. It is simply an act of preparing and serving tea for special occasions in a procedural manner. These special occasions include the changing of seasons such as the cold season (winter and autum) and warm season (spring and summer). The Japanese have very strict rules and aesthetics when it comes to daily or seasonal rituals of their culture. The rules implemented all have a meaning behind them, but aside from that we can conclude that Japanese people are indeed very disciplined and well-mannered. Of course, before knowing how to make green tea the Japanese traditional way, one must first familiarize with the utensils used and also some terms.

Equipment/Utensils

Natsume

Natsume is the tea caddy, basically where the matcha powder is kept. 

Chashaku

The small and thin scoop used to scoop out the tea powder into the chawan. It is made out of a bamboo stick.

Chasen

This is the tea whisk, which you may find in the images above it is the one that sort of looks like a shuttlecock. It is used to whisk the tea to give it more taste, and it is also made out of a bamboo stick.

Hishaku

Hishaku is the long bamboo ladle you can see in the first image above. This ladle is used to scoop out hot water from the kettle (kama) and into the chawan to make tea.

Chawan

Funnily enough, the Japanese and Malay word for 'cup' is the same! However, the direct translation for 'chawan' is 'tea bowl'. They have different types of chawan, some are thicker or wider, some are even smaller, and they are used for different types of tea such as thick tea (koicha) and thin tea (usucha).

Kama

What is more familiarly known to us as a kettle, kama is an iron pot used to heat water. The kettle we are more familiar with has a handle and a spout, however the kama is just merely a pot. The water is to be scooped out by the hishaku as seen above.

Ro (sunken hearth)

This hearth, which is a square-shaped hole in Tatami flooring (like those in traditional Japanese homes), is used during the cold seasons like winter and autumn to keep the kama warm and also speed up the heating process. 

Chakin (hemp cloth), Fukusa (silk cloth)

The chakin is used to ritually clean the chawan after it is used by the guest. Fukusa is a silk cloth used to clean the chashaku and natsume, and can also be used to handle the hot lid of a kama. 

Preparation

A short video of a Japanese lady preparing tea.

To summarize the entire procedure, basically the teishu (host) scoops the matcha (green tea powder) into the tea bowl, adds hot water and then whisks it before serving it to her guests. Sounds rather easy and normal when described roughly, however there's more to it than just preparing tea for your guests.

When the teishu prepares the tea, there are certain rules he/she must follow. For example, the way they are dressed and how they sit have certain do's and don't's. It is important that they wear formal kimonos, and their movements and aesthetics are taken into consideration as well. It is a Japanese culture to sit on your knees and rest your bottom on your heel in a polite manner. I can't imagine just how much it would hurt if you sit in that position for too long, and then standing up with the feeling of pins and needles in your legs. Ouch! The Japanese sure are very disciplined. 

A dish with sweets, or what we Malaysians call "kuih", is to be served with the tea as a sign of harmony because it counters the bitter taste of the tea. The dish of sweets is known as Wagashi, and it is served to the guests before the tea ceremony begins. After the guests have gratefully received the wagashi, the teishu will then proceed to preparing the koicha (thick tea). As observed in the video link above, the teishu's movements are very delicate, and she does not rush her movements. In fact, she takes her time to slowly put an item down one by one, and at times she would keep her unoccupied hand on her lap or use her free hand to keep her sleeve out of the way. 

The teishu has to warm the chawan before she can begin to put any tea powder in it, and she does so by pouring hot water into the chawan and then tilting the chawan in an anti-clockwise motion to warm it. Then she'll have to discard the water into the kensui (waste water bowl), and this signifies to the guests that they can now indulge in the sweets. She carefully takes two scoops of the matcha and evenly spreads out the powder in the chawan before keeping the natsume and chashaku aside. Then she proceeds to grab a ladle-full of hot water, but carefully pours only a small amount into the chawan. Later on she uses the chasen to whisk the tea vigorously to perfection before finally serving it to her guests. The chasen must be in her right hand as her left hand holds the chawan steady, and as she whisks she must also be careful not to spill any matcha. The koicha is perfect when it is whisked until half the chawan is filled with foam. When serving her guests, the teishu has to hold the chawan in her right hand and place it on her left palm. While in her palm, she has to turn the chawan about two times anti-clockwise so that the shomen (front side of cup) will face her guest. Even cleaning the cups have a certain way of doing so. Every movement is fixed, even the placement of utensils are fixed on the tatami mat. 

Pouring the hot water from a small kettle instead as this setting is actually on a table instead of the tatami floor in traditional Japanese homes.

The whisk is the next step after hot water is poured in with the tea powder.

After the koicha is served to the guests, the teishu cleans the chawan so she can proceed to preparing the usucha (thin tea) so as to "wash down" the koicha. The ceremony of preparing green tea repeats until the guests are fairly satisfied with the tea. This is only a rough explanation on how the tea ceremony is held, but if you wish to know in specific detail what the teishu has to perform, from entering the house to bringing in and placing the utensils down, then feel free to visit this website for more information: japanese-tea-ceremony.net

Guests' Etiquette

Guests too have a couple of rules to follow to show respect to the teishu. The guest of honor is called shyokyaku, the second guest is jikyaku, while the other guests are simply known as kyaku. The last guest also has a special name which is tsume. This is to show that the guests have certain ranking and sitting order in a tea ceremony. 

The teishu serving tea to her three guests, shyokyaku, jikyaku, and tsume. I'm not sure how the order is supposed to be like, but I assume they must be sitting in order.

How guests are seated if there are many of them.

The teishu will serve the wagashi first by placing the dish in front of the shyokyaku, and the shyokyaku will accept the dish by receiving it with both hands and bowing as they do so, and putting them to the side. The wagashi is only to be eaten when the teishu has already warmed the chawan with hot water. 

When drinking the koicha, the guest must pick up the chawan with their right hand and place it into their left palm while the right hand maintains its grip. The shyokyaku will be the first to receive the koicha, hence they will apologize for drinking before others as a show of respect. The shyokyaku does not drink the whole cup of tea, but instead takes a sip before passing on to the other guests. After each person has drunk, they must wipe the rim. Wiping the rim is just a gesture of cleanliness before passing on to others. As they are done, the tsume will pass the chawan back to the shyokyaku who will then inspect the chawan before handing it back to the teichu for proper cleaning. After the koicha, the teichu will serve the usucha, which is not as heavy and thick as the koicha. The shyokyaku will ask the rest of the guests if they have had enough tea, and if they have, the shyokyaku will inform the teichu to clean up and end the tea ceremony.

Wow. Imagine how patient and discipline the Japanese are to be able to sit in the same position with very little movement and heavy clothing. I doubt anyone in Malaysia would be able to stand that! I've always wanted to live in Japan and experience their tea ceremonies, but I'm afraid of being called a rebel there just because I can't seem to sit still. I wonder if the secret to their life-long health is harmony and inner peace, because they seem to have a meaning or reason behind every movement during the tea ceremony. Also I wonder if all this training is also the cause of their fantastic punctuality, as compared to Malaysians' punctuality. Perhaps we could learn a thing or two from the Japanese. They are after all, a huge influence in the world today, and they are one of the most advanced countries worldwide.

I guess this marks the end of my post. I would have written more, but there were just too many rules to the procedure and every movement is just so specific, I'd probably bore my readers to death if I go into that much detail. I hope this rough explanation will suffice.

Till then.


Nabilah M.