Japanese Tea Ceremony Demonstation

Hey everyone! I'm sorry for how clumsy I've been time wise. I haven't been managing my time as well as I should have been. I completely forgot to make a blog post for yesterday, so I'm a post or so behind from my attempted daily routine! I hope you all are doing well. This post will be about a tea ceremony demonstration that I had the fortune of being a part of when I had some work to do in Little Tokyo. All of the photos seen in this post were taken by John Woo. You can find his work on his facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/johnwoooooo/?fref=ts

The person beside me that I will be having the tea ceremony with is Sarah. You can find them at their facebook page PJ Hime : https://www.facebook.com/pjhime/?fref=ts .

I don't have a lot to say about the tea ceremony, aside from it being a very simplified version of the tea ceremony. It was absolutely amazing to be a part of it though. I had originally watched my friends Shelby and Keith perform the tea ceremony, and when I was asked if I'd like to be a part of it for free I nearly jumped for joy! It definitely is a great opportunity that I would recommend to anyone who is truly interested in traditional parts of Japanese culture. It's a dying art, but it's a very wonderful art at that. I hope that we are able to have enough people who are willing to continue these forms of art in every culture because it would definitely be a shame for it to become extinct. 

The Sensei that was providing the demonstration to us is Takahashi Sokei, and assisting her was her mentee Rayko Dig. You can find more information about their tea ceremony demonstrations on their website: http://sokeitea.com/ . 

Also..funny story but I guess I'm a little too rough with my hands...I had snapped the wooden eating utensil that was used for cutting the delicious wagashi (a sweet dessert that is served during the Japanese tea ceremony). I believe the wagashi that we were provided was a type of Yokan (a thick, jellied dessert made out of red bean paste, agar, and sugar) as it was in a familiar shape to the traditional Yokan, had the taste of red bean, and we were asked to cut our wagashi into slices (which is how Yokan is typically eaten). 

Overall, it was a very, very wonderful experience. I know that I've said it a couple of times already but it's an experience that I will remember until the day that I die. The matcha tea that we were served was very delicious and was practically the best serving that I had ever had the luxury of tasting. The experience had also surprisingly brought me much, much closer to my now close friend Sarah, which is truly a moment in time that I will hold close to my heart.