THE ROOM FOR THE TEA CEREMONY
What is the tea ceremony? Simply put, it is a gathering of a few people to share a bowl of tea. The tea used is in powder form and is a vibrant green color. It is whisked until slightly frothy and served hot in a tea bowl about the size of a soup bowl. Sugar and cream are never added, but to make the astringent taste of the tea more palatable, traditional Japanese sweet cakes are provided before the tea is served.
The aesthetic consciousness underlying the present-day tea ceremony wherein everything—the utensils for making the tea, the drinking bowls, the arrangement of the alcove, the sequence of movements, etc.—coalesces into a unity of object, person, and space, came to be established between the end of the fifteenth century and the end of the sixteenth. Today, tea ceremony teachers in Japan, the U.S., and elsewhere give training in what is considered one of the polite arts of Japan to a large number of students. The etiquette of the tea ceremony is so complex and refined, however, that this formidable code has come to have little or no meaning to many Japanese. If one can develop a genuine liking for powdered tea, then an interest in the forms and in the quality of the tea bowls and other utensils will follow naturally, and one can refer to a number of books available in English.
Design
The tea room (chashitsu), whether it be somewhere in the house itself, or a detached building, is a place where one should feel as though one is in a completely different world. Two things which symbolize this separation from the world are the kekkai, a small stone bound with rope, and the tiny entrance. As the guest approaches the tea room from the garden, placement of the kekkai in the middle of the pathway tells him whether another tea ceremony is in progress, and whether he should wait in a specially built shelter. The kekkai marks the boundary between the everyday world and the non-everyday world, as well as the boundary of privacy where the voices of people in the tea room cannot be heard.
Host and guests at a tea ceremony.
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