Category: blog post

Midorikai interlude

Karla has agreed to write a few things for the blog during her year in Midorikai.  Here is the first installment:

Greetings!

My name is Karla and I am a student of Margie’s. I am lucky enough to follow in the footsteps of my sensei and attend the Urasenke Midorikai program beginning this April. I …

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New Midorikai student

Our own Karla just flew to Japan to start her year at Midorikai.  She already has met her classmates and sempai. Hanami under the weeping cherry trees.  We wish her the most wonderful year of tea.

Permanent link to this article: https://issoantea.com/new-midorikai-student/

The sound of boiling water

One of Rikyu’s rules is to lay the charcoal so that it boils the water. I will not be talking about the charcoal, today, but the boiling water.

There are no clocks in the tea room, the kama is one of your timing devices. Depending on how you lay the charcoal — farther apart, the …

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Hatsugama 2016

This year for Hatsugama we changed things a little bit.  Instead of many small seki, we had one large group event.  Our little group has grown up and we had a lot more people to serve.

This year of the fire monkey and the chokudai is hito or person.

Buffet style luncheon and then …

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The taste of tea

Some people think of Chanoyu, the Japanese tea ceremony, is more about the ritual and not about tea at all. As a student and teacher of the Japanese way of tea, it is sometimes hard to explain that the taste of tea is every bit as essential to the tea ceremony as it is to …

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