Tea Ceremony

Kitagawamura (北川村) is known for Yuzu, a small fruit like if a lemon and a grapefruit had a baby. It's more tart than sour, while still retaining all the other aspects of a citrus-y taste. I don't like it very much (but I don't like citrus). Anyway, the village produces the most Yuzu of any village in Japan and then they process it and send it to another village nearby to be turned into billions of different products. This is also the village known for that fellow's house - Nakaoka Shintaro, the samurai fellow with two swords. At his house, you could have matcha, green tea made from green tea powder, slightly bitter but mostly just banal. I don't think it tastes like much, but it's tasty enough. I got to make my own.

The preparation of tea has evolved into an extremely detailed and refined art form. People (maybe just women) study tea ceremony for years, like wearing kimono or doing traditional dances. If you ever see geishas serve tea, they will follow the same steps as this very formal and deliberate method (I think...). It's quite impressive and is designed to be as elegant and lady-like as possible.

I am not particularly elegant or lady-like, refined or detailed, formal or deliberate. But I really enjoyed these ladies trying to teach me and letting me make my own.

 First you warm the cup. It has a white stripe down the front, so you remember where the front is. During the preparation of the tea, the stripe faces the person making the tea. 

There is a very precise way that you pick up the tea container and the tea scoop. You pick up both from the top with one hand. You hold the bottom of the tea container with your other hand and remove the lid and place it on the table (while continuing to hold the tea scoop). 

 You scoop out some matcha, the exact measurements, I do not know. The nice lady just told me when to stop. 

Then you scoop some hot water (not boiling I think), from the earthenware pot. You hold the ladle handle between three fingers and your thumb. Maybe. The first time you dip it into the pot, you just put it back. The second time, you scoop water out for your tea cup. 

You carefully ladle the water into the tea cup. I'm sure the pros never NEVER spill. They probably also evenly distribute the water over all the tea. 

Then you get a little wisk and start wisking. Or is it whisking? Like whiskers? 

You stir back and forth and gently dissolve all the tea. The multi-pronged stirring-tool makes it froth and foam a bit. I imagine this should also become an even layer of white fluff. 

The last stroke of the whisk is in a specific pattern, like the shape of the syllable "の"(no). When you are done, the whisk is carefully replaced in its original spot. 

Then you pick up the cup and turn it so that the white stripe is facing the guest. 

 In this particular case, I was also my own guest, but my friend taking pictures pretended she was the guest so I could practice turning my cup around. 

The point of tea ceremony is much more interesting than actually making the tea. All the elaborate preparations and precise movements (none of which I even remotely accomplished in my ten minute escapade) are to show the guest that you care about them. The Japanese language is interesting, but I personally believe it falls a little short on expression of intimate feelings, even simple emotions sometimes. Perhaps I don't know enough Japanese. But I think the culture might sometimes back me up on this thought. I think some of the precision and ritual that is such a prominent and essential part of Japanese traditions comes from needing an alternate method of expressing fundamental and sincere emotions. For tea ceremony, there is even a separate room like a kitchen (but no the kitchen) for preparing and then there is a separate room where one serves tea to ones guests. Every movement in the preparation and serving of the tea is dictated, every gesture predetermined, every delightful intricacy practiced a thousand times before publicly attempted. It is a performance, in which the performer shares something beautiful and exquisite with the audience in the attempt to communicate... what? If I were doing this thing, I have to admit it wouldn't be for just any old guest. 

I used to work in coffee shops (and no doubt will again, every now and then as fate dictates). I don't particularly care for the service industry, but there is something enjoyable about being able to provide something nice for someone who wants it. Yes, I had bitchy some customers, but most of the people who came for coffee or tea were nice and all of them were dying for their coffee. Except those frappuccino cheerleader brats. (Google spell-check doesn't know how to spell Frappuccino! Neither do I!)

I don't really like to cook. In fact, it bores me to tears unless I am helping a bunch of other people and it definitely helps if we are drinking heavily. But I have always kind of wished that I enjoyed it, because preparing food for someone is a great way to show them you care about them. Which is why Brad should always love me, because I once made him an egg white, broccoli, and (was it bacon?) scramble. But I like making drinks more. I've made tea for people to show them I cared or that I was happy they were in my house. After a hard day at work, I made drinks for my roommate and he made drinks for me (alcoholic ones - we were such the model 1950s couple). But there was no ceremony attached, no elaborate process that showed the other person that all the details were included because I wanted to spare no effort to make the event memorable. 

I used to be a performing musician (I still am, but not nearly in the same capacity or at the same level). I took care over the pieces I played because 1) I didn't want to be embarrassed by totally sucking arse and 2) on some level, music was always about communicating who I really was, my fundamental self, without the distraction of sarcasm and cynicism, jokes and defense mechanisms. It was one of the only times I could share something with someone else and I had to be honest about it. I spent hours every day, practicing being honest and open about my deepest feelings. But the only medium I had was music. I'm trying to find someone to teach me tea ceremony, because I think the solemn exultation of "intricate ritual faultlessly performed" is something I could get into again. It's definitely something that can be shared with others, even if it's only one or two people and you have to crawl in the tea room through a very tiny door (you do, by the way - it's a bit ridiculous and I'm not sure of the purpose). And it's way easier than memorizing Bach.