Japanese Style Home Tea Ceremony

An Overview of a Japanese Style Home Tea Ceremony

Tea is considered an art form, and the tea ceremony is focused on serving, your guests, the surroundings, calmness, attention to details, simplicity, and the appreciation of ichigo ichie.

 

Preparation:

The most important preparation for the host is to be focused only being in harmony with their soul. Conflicts, anxiety, worry, everything that pulls into the past or the future, needs to be dealt with. Focus will have to be in the now.

 

For the guest, they will need to leave behind all the material thoughts and concerns and focus on absolving their hearts of all the negativity of life.

• They wait for the host to announce they are ready to receive them.
• They wash their hands to symbolically remove all the dirt and dust of the outside world.
• They enter in and bow to the host as a sign of respect. 

 

The ceremony starts with cleaning the matcha teaware involved. The host will clean the utensils in front of your guests, and then aesthetically set them. The cleaning and setting of the tools need to be done in a graceful way so that the procedure is aesthetically pleasing to look upon. No unnecessary movements or conversations are allowed in the ceremony and everything from cleaning to how the guests are treated has to be in harmony.

 

The Matcha is prepared and served in a bowl.

 

The bowl is presented to the main guest, they will admire it, and rotate it before drinking the tea. They will wipe the bowl and offer it to the next guest who will repeat the process until everyone has had the bowl. 

 

The host will clean the tools and teaware, and the guest inspect the teaware as a sign of respect for the host. They carefully examine and handle everything with care.

They bow one last time while leaving.

 

Details, products, and more can be found on Teaologists website:

https://teaologists.co.uk/blogs/teaologists-health-habit-blog/how-to-run-a-japanese-tea-ceremony-at-home-the-steps