Seasonal Tea Ceremony Notes
August 2008
It is hard to beat the heat of this month. One of the things that
tea people do in this month is prepare the ashes for the ro. To remove
the impurities from the previous year's ashes, they are washed and colored
with bancha or spices and spread on a straw mat to dry in the sun.
This is repeated again and again. It is stored in ceramic containers
ready to be used in the winter hearth. After being taken care of for many
years like this, the ash takes a silken texture, feel gently heavy and look
deeply glossy. Ash prepared like this is very valuable.
Some of my favorite summertime sweets can be made for guests this month:
mizu botan is
white an colored pink wrapped in a kudzu gelatin which is then steamed (manju)
to create a delightful transparent summer sweet. Kayoiji is rakugan (rice
flour cake) with Daitoku-ji natto beans sprinkled here and there to suggest
stepping stones. The sweet rice cake with the salty natto are a good
combination of flavors. I also like the mizu yokan that is
poured into small green bamboo tubes when hot and allowed to cool. You
poke a hole in the bottom of the bamboo and suck the sweet out of the tube
-- very refreshing.
August 2007
the river keeps flowing
there are no cricket secrets
the frogs talk all night
August is an in-between month. It is still unbearably hot in Kyoto at
this time of year, yet there is the anticipation of Autumn. The cicadas are
so loud at this time of year. And there are a number of utensils with
different kinds of bugs featured.
The Obon festival is celebrated this month from about the 7th. The spirits
of the deceased ancestors come back to earth. A welcoming fire is lit and at
the home altar, vegetables, fruit and small gourds are offered. Food is put
out each day. Then there is the sending off fires to light the spirits
returning to the spirit world. On the hills surrounding Kyoto the Daimonji
is lit along with the boat and other symbols. We went to the roof of our
building and could see the fires on all the hills.
A good temae for August is arai jakin, where the wide flat tea bowl is
brought into the tea room with cool water in it. When the host lifts the
chakin and lets the water drip from it imparts a cool feeling. The bowl is
then emptied into the kensui with the sound of a waterfall.
Wide flat mizusashi with large lacquer lids can be used as well as well
buckets, and hand buckets. Scrolls to suggest the wind, breeze, waterfalls,
flowing rivers are welcome.
References:
An Anthology of the Seasonal Feeling in Chanoyu, by Michael A.
Birch
Chado: The Way of Tea, A Japanese Tea Master's Almanac, translated
from the Japanese by Shaun McCabe and Iwasaki Satoko.
Notes from Midorikai lectures, 1996-1997 |
