MatthewMeyer.net Blog: Sadou (Tea Ceremony)

May 18, 2004

Sadou (Tea Ceremony)

Today we visited the Gyokusen-en garden and tea house. Gyokusen-en is a small park built in the 1500's by a Christian (and there are hidden crosses all over the park) to be the private garden and tea house of Lord Maeda, lord of Kanazawa. It's located right near the castle.

The garden was absolutely beautiful, and we got to look into the private tea room of Lord Maeda, see a Koi pond, view the "mailbox of the gods," a drop box where people can put haiku poems (once a year, a winner is selected from the poems). Before all of this, though, we participated in a Japanese tea ceremony.

The ceremony was absolutely amazing; there was so much art and knowledge involved. The Japanese take their tea very seriously.


Before entering, you have to purify your mind and body outside the tea house	It wasn't hard, considering how beautiful it was	Beautiful tea sweets called okashi are served before tea is drunk	Making the tea...

Still making the tea...	This is definately not "instant" tea	Finally, it's done	Yasuko shows us how to drink

I think she liked it	A new scroll is hung every day, a sign of hospitality	More tea is brought for us	Yasuko, Sandra, and Joy say their lines

Boo! Too close to the camera, Frances	Leo, Frances, Leslie, and I are shown how to make tea	Simon and Leslie enjoy a second helping	The whole group after the ceremony

A view of the tea house from the gardens outside	Same picture, only without flash	Outside of Lord Maeda's private tea room	Another view of the teahouse from above

Shrine in the garden	Garden pathway	Frances doesn't seem to want to be photographed	Finally the sun came out! The light made really nice patterns through the trees (Frances took this shot)

More garden shots	A well just outside of the tea house	Must... resist... urge... to push...	Leslie does what she does best

One last view of the garden before exiting