The Art of Japanese Tea

Welcome, everyone. Welcome to the NARC Museum of Arts Community Day celebrating the Cherry Blossom Festival. Today is presented by Horizon Foundation for New Jersey. Again, thank you so much for joining us throughout the day. And this particular program is the Art of Japanese Tea. So we're really, really excited. Now a few things before we start. My name is Jessica Nunez. And if you're watching on Zoom, feel free to use the Q&A feature at the bottom of your screen to type in your questions throughout this event. If you're watching on Facebook, feel free to put your questions in the comment area. And we'll be sure to get to them at the end of our session. Today, we're working with a wonderful organization that our special guest, Keiko, will be telling you a little bit about. But this organization serves as a bridge between Japan and the United States. And it is with my pleasure that I'm going to hand over the floor to Keiko. Welcome to the Japanese Tea Ceremony Demonstration by Omote Senke Domonkai, Eastern Region, USA. Our organization is an association of the practitioners tea ceremony called Chanoyu, following the traditions of Omote Senke Fushinyan and was established in 2010. Our association is a non-profit organization with a mission of spreading world peace through Chanoyu. Today, I would like to introduce Omote Senke style tea ceremony. Our main school was started 450 years ago by the founder Sen Norikyu. The spirit of Chanoyu perfected by Sen Norikyu has been handed down through generations at Omote Senke for over 400 years. We would like to explain a little bit of the history of tea ceremony and the spirit of Chanoyu. After that, we will show a short movie of our main school headquarter in Kyoto and the live demonstration of tea ceremony. I hope you will find a moment of peace and calmness from your busy life. So, now we'll move on to the lecture. I'm going to share the screen. Okay, hi everyone. So, today I'm going to be going through Chanoyu and just a brief outline of our presentation we've prepared for you today. We'll be going through a brief history of the tea ceremony, a little information on the founder Sen Norikyu, Wabi style tea, the pleasure of Chanoyu, the spirit of Chanoyu, and the five senses in tea. So, first we have the history of the tea ceremony. Tea was first brought from Japan to China in the 8th century. However, the custom of drinking tea didn't really take root until much later. In the 12th century, the Zen monk Yosai brought home Zen Buddhism and as part of this a new way of producing and drinking tea. And the way of drinking tea that Yosai brought back is a lot like today's custom of whisking powdered green tea we call matcha before drinking it. And in the 15th century, tea moved from the age of being consumed as this luxury item to the time of Chanoyu, which was an everyday activity that had its own philosophy and form. And then in the 16th century, the Wabi style of tea was completed. There was a revolutionary development that occurred as opposed to the enjoyment of tea being for lavish banquets with gorgeous karamono, Chinese utensils. It became Chanoyu, which saw this muted beauty using unsophisticated and domestically produced ceramics. And this is known as Wabi-cha. The founder, Sen Norikyu, completed the Wabi style as is practiced now. Here is a portrait of Sen Norikyu. He is considered the historical figure with the most profound influence on Chanoyu. And he was also a tea master of Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyasu, the first and second great unifiers of Japan. So now we'll move on to Wabi style tea. It's an aspect of the aesthetics of Chanoyu. It's not beauty that's directly visible to the naked eye, but it's something that you have to seek in the atmosphere and the spiritual satisfaction of the ceremony. And it's based on the ideas of Zen spirituality and takes on a quiet and simple lifestyle. So next we'll move on to the pleasure of Chanoyu. First, there are three aspects, tea utensils, the spirit of the host, and the main tea. So the utensils are an essence of Japanese arts and crafts and has a great effect on the culture of Japan. And the craftsmanship, the craftsman's traditions and skills have continued down for generations. And then we move on to the spirit of the host who entertains the guests. And in turn, the guests thankfully received the tea and sweets that come with it. And then the tea, last but not least, is the most exquisite and it's the most precious type of Japanese tea that's produced for the ceremonies and its producing processes are very sophisticated. So now moving on to the spirit of Chanoyu, the way of tea, as we say, is to cultivate one's mind, body, and soul all together through the everyday learning of tea. And in his trainings, our founder laid out four basic concepts for tea for the practitioners to follow, which are wa, ke, se, and jakku, meaning harmony, respect, purity, and tranquility. So last, we have the five senses and tea. All five senses are stimulated in the tea room. And first, we have sight. The guest watches the host prepare tea. You get to admire the appearance of the tea room, such as the scroll and the flowers that are decorated in the room. Then we have hearing. We like to equate the sounds you hear in the tea room to sounds of nature. So the whistling kettle makes the sound of wind in the pines and the pouring water into a bowl sounds like a cascading waterfall. And even the rustle of the host's kimono as he or she prepares the tea is a significant sound of the tea room. And then we have taste. Obviously, the pleasure of eating and tasting the sweets to that first sip of tea is very tasteful. And then we have smell. The aroma of tea as it is lifted to drink. And there's also a constant smell of incense in the tea room. It's very tranquil and peaceful. And last, we have touch. The feel of the tea bowl in your hands while you're drinking it. If you're a host, the feel of the utensils as you prepare tea. Yeah, so those are the five senses that are simulated in the tea room. And this concludes our presentation. Thank you so much for listening. We'll move on to a video next. Thank you very much for the listening. Now you will see the view of you will view a short movie introducing our main school and live of demonstration of the tea ceremony. The movie has some music in the background. However, during tea ceremony, usually, we do not play any music. As she explained about the five senses, we want you to enjoy the quietness and the subtle sound in the tea room, such as the sound of hot water boiling, the movement of the host. So now we are going to serve sweets first. So what's the name of the tea? The name of the tea is Kusi, which means sky and green. And the name of the brand? The name of the brand is Sorate, which is based itself in Brooklyn. Very, very delicious. Thank you very much. And also, the sweets are very pretty. What are the name of the sweets? The name of the sweets are called Wakaba, which are green. Very delicious. The color of the tea bowl is very pretty. What are the tea bowls? The tea bowl is called Red Monaka style with a picture of cherry blossoms through the petals flowing through the string. Very nice. Cherry blossom is not only the spring flower, but also the flower of the Japanese. I'm very honored to have a tea with this bowl. Thank you. Thank you very much. Oh Thank you so much for watching. So now I'm going to show the short movie for our headquarter in Kyoto. Thank you so much for the listening and watching. The tea ceremony is not only drinking tea, but also the way of the idea of life. The spirit of tea ceremony is wake, stay, harmony, and also life. Respect your friends and family, purify your space and mind, and have a good day. Then you will have a tranquil life. We believe learning tea ceremony gives you a quality life. Thank you so much. Thank you so much Keiko. A huge thank you to your team. If you have any questions, feel free to put them in the Q&A feature at the bottom of your Zoom screen. If you're watching us on Facebook, feel free to leave a comment. Keiko, we do have a few questions. A few people want to know what is the significance of turning the bowl when giving and receiving the bowl during the ceremony. Asking the same question has two meanings. One is every tea bowl has a front, and usually front of the tea bowl has a beautiful pattern or beautiful grains. So we do not want to put your lip on directly to the beautiful parts, which means we respect the potter who made the tea bowl. That's beautiful. So for everyone watching us on Facebook, I saw a few comments about the beautiful bowl, and I think the person who is demonstrating also highlighted the beautiful cherry blossom pattern on the bowl. So it's important to acknowledge the potter and, of course, the artwork. Someone else would like to know where can they find the tea sweets, but not in New York, in Washington, D.C. Yeah, it is very struggle, and also it is very difficult for us to get the sweets because sweets express the season, and we can find some sweets in New York City or New Jersey. However, most of the time I made them by myself. Oh, okay. So this time I made the sweets for today, and during the tea ceremony, guests asked the host what is the sweet, and then host answered wakaba, which is green leaf, and it's almost done for the cherry blossoms, and then new bud of the green leaf is coming. So I take some the seeds in advance. Okay. Yeah, I can show you. That would be great. Yeah. So it is very difficult, actually, to get the sweets here. So for our Washington, D.C. viewer, I'm so sorry. So we have Keiko who's going to show us the sweets, followed by Keiko, while you get the sweets, someone else would like to know if there's a list of utensils or what are the utensils that you use during the ceremony, and are they available? Yes, one I would like to explain, one is you saw the box, which called tabi-dansu. Tabi means trouble, and then dansu means shelf. So it's kind of a container, the portable wood shelf that was invented by Sen Norikyu when he followed the Hideyoshi and his Odawara battle. So Norikyu made tea for the Hideyoshi and samurai who went to the battlefield during the battle of Odawara at this time, and we use this shelf. And then all other utensils, we pick following the theme or season, and it's so difficult to find here. Most utensils I brought from Japan by airplane or sometimes ship. However, it is a way you can find from your everyday life, something like a simulator, but it's not made for the tea originally, but you can pick and you can use whatever you like. So the importance is not, the utensils are important, but if you're trying to do this at home on your own, it's just more of the ceremony component, yes? Yes. Okay, thank you. A few other people would like to know if only men perform, show us that again. Okay, so this is a sweets that I made, it's difficult to see, the top is zero and then bottom is, it's kind of a rice. Okay. So I use agar, sugar, water, and then some food color, and lime for flavor. Okay, it's beautiful. Thank you. It looks very yummy. It is yummy. Because the green tea natcha itself is a little bit bitter, so we usually eat sweets right before drinking the green tea, and then you can feel harmony between sweetness and bitterness. Okay, that's quite beautiful. Thank you, Keiko. A lot of people also want to know if this ceremony is performed usually by only men? This question is also, it's very common. Well, basically, tea ceremony is started by only male, maybe 100 years ago. After our Edo period, Edo era, so many Western style is imported to Japan, and it's became basically the tea ceremony for the male and for samurai, and some like rich merchandise practitioners. But after Western culture imported to Japan, so the female is more like learning for tea ceremony for their education. So now, 80% of tea practitioners are female, male little. However, our grandmaster is male. Only male can continue their, you know. The tradition. Yeah, their tradition. Okay, thank you. The next question is, someone would like to know if you could repeat the name of the tea that was used in the ceremony. Sure. This time, it was donated for this event, and the name of the tea is Kusui. Ku means sky, sui means green, and usually we use the poetic name for the tea. And the brand is in Brooklyn, actually. However, tea came from Kyoto, Uji. So yeah, the brand name is Sorate in Brooklyn. Let me see if I can put it in the chat. Thank you to Sylvia who typed it into our Q&A. I'm not sure everyone can see it, but let me. Did I spell that correctly? S-O-R-A-T-E dot co. Perfect. So if you'd like to look up some tea. Oh, I see. Yeah. Correct? Yes. Yeah, it is correct. Okay. So everyone can enjoy the tea that we use today. Yeah, because we can buy anywhere now because matcha became so popular. However, the quality, some of them is okay for the matcha latte, but not great enough for a tea ceremony. Okay. Is the tea used in the tea ceremony, I know during the presentation you said it's a little bit more delicate. Is it finer? Yes, very fine. Stone grinded. We use tea from Kyoto. Maybe 100%. Okay. Someone would like to know why when you're putting all the utensils away, why does water get closed in the cabinet at the end? In the container at the bottom? Oh, I see the water, cold water pitcher. We use some cold water because we use some hot water, and we add cold water, and then we fill with cold water. And then also express, this is a very nice subtle sound of falling water from the kettle. So it makes freshness or pure purity. Okay. I think we have a few more minutes, I think one or two more minutes to answer the last few questions. Someone would like to know why does the host and the guest bow to certain utensils or to each other? This is one part of wakkei seijaku. So kei means respect. So host and guest respect each other. And then tea ceremony is not just by host. The guest is part of the tea ceremony. So the guest also have a very important role. So guest and host both have to make good tea ceremony. So that's why they bow, respect each other. The bow is very Japanese tradition custom. So this is very Japanese style and respect the people, respect the utensil, not utensil, respect the people, someone who made the utensil we respect. That's why we bow to, for example, we bow to the hanging scroll, you can behind me. So this is written by monk in Daitokuji temple. So really beginning of a tea ceremony, guest enter to the tea room and then bow to the hanging scroll. Because we think the monk who wrote this calligraphy is in tea room. Okay, thank you. I think this leads us to our last question. We had a lot more questions. Feel free, we'll put the name of the organization also in the chat. And if you have additional questions, feel free to reach out. Additionally, thank you again for joining us. And I'll leave you with this last question. Keiko, someone would like to know what are the four principles that you mentioned earlier? I know one was harmony. And then you just talked about respect. And say with purity and tranquility. So this is very important aspect for tea ceremony. Beautiful. I think that's a perfect ending to such a beautiful day. Again, Keiko, thank you so much to you and your team. This was absolutely beautiful. Thank you everyone for watching. If you would like to sign up for additional events and our upcoming events on our website, please visit norkmuseumart.org. And make sure to check out our next community day, Art Extravaganza on May 15. And we'll be sure to drop all that information in the chat. If you enjoyed today, we would ask you to please consider donating to the Nork Museum of Art so we can continue bringing you all of this wonderful virtual programming. Again, we'll leave the links in the chat. Again, Keiko, thank you so much. Thank you to your team. Have a great day, everyone. Thank you so much. Bye.