Tea ceremony

On October 25, 2026, I attended the "Tokyo Grand Tea Ceremony 2026" held at the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum. This is a record of my day walking from the tea ceremony room at the former residence of Takahashi Korekiyo, through the relocated buildings within the museum grounds, to the Kagiya tea house, the Musashino landscape, and finally to the Hakenomori Art Museum.

The Omotesenke school of tea ceremony offered tea to Ise Grand Shrine, the Meiji Restoration, and tea utensils from the Isuzu River at Tokyo Daijingu Shrine on the day of the ceremony. The shrine's roof and chrysanthemum crest banners are visible under the blue sky. Attendees await their seats in the main tea ceremony area and secondary seating areas. Many people in kimonos were seen at the venue. This was the Omotesenke school of tea ceremony, officiated by the head of the school, held at Tokyo Daijingu Shrine on October 23, 2026...

Visit the Northern Culture Museum in Niigata and trace the history of the Ito family, one of the most prominent wealthy farming families in Echigo. From the rice and land of the Echigo Plain, to the large landowning system, magnificent mansions and gardens, tea rooms, ceramics and crafts, we will explore, with local photographs, why "wealthy farmers" emerged in Niigata.

At the Gion Festival, we witnessed the tea ceremony performed by the head of the Omotesenke school at Yasaka Shrine. We experienced the floats, the tea ceremony rooms, and the Ichiriki-tei tea ceremony firsthand, and explored the connections within Kyoto culture through the tea ceremony, from Rokkakudo Temple, to the plays "Hana Ikusa" and "Kanadehon Chushingura," to the geisha districts and chimaki (rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves).

What is a black Raku tea bowl? Based on the origins of Raku tea bowls by Sen no Rikyu and Chojiro, the techniques of hand-molding and carving, the actual pieces seen at the Raku Museum, and the experience of actually making a black Raku tea bowl, this book explains the form and the allure of "black" in an easy-to-understand way for beginners.

This book compares Nonomura Ninsei's national treasure, the "Polychrome Pheasant Incense Burner," which I saw in Kanazawa, with works by Ninsei and Ogata Kenzan that I saw at the Nezu Museum. It analyzes the polychrome enamel, form, patterns, and negative space of Kyoto ware, and introduces how this was applied to the actual production of polychrome tea bowls, along with photographs of the production process.

I visited Ippodo Tea Shop in Teramachi during the Gion Festival in Kyoto. Using Miyako Watanabe's "The Taste of Tea" as a guide, I will consider how the "taste of tea" is created in relation to matcha, thick and thin tea, tea ceremony practice, the seasons, and the tools used.

I visited the "NIGO® and Handeishi" exhibition held at the Ishimizu Museum in Tsu City, Mie Prefecture. Through the tea bowls of Kawakita Handeishi collected by NIGO® and 25 bowls he created himself, I reflected on collecting, pottery making, the freedom to break away from form, and the inheritance of culture.

We visited the national treasure tea room "Joan," which was relocated to Yurakuen Garden in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture. We will introduce this two-and-a-half-mat tea room, left behind by Oda Urakusai, the younger brother of Oda Nobunaga, discussing its architecture, the tea ceremony, our experience at Yurakuen Garden, and even referencing the film "Sen no Rikyu: Honkakubo Ibun."

From Kitain Temple to the traditional storehouse-lined streets, the Toki no Kane (Time Bell), the Yamazaki Museum of Art, and the former Yamazaki family villa, this is a record of a walk through Kawagoe, the "Little Edo," tracing its history related to the Tokugawa family, its architecture spanning from the Edo period to the modern era, and its long-established food culture.