Experience Traditional Tea Ceremony at YANESEN, Offering a Variety of Plans for Sightseeing!

Yanesen picks up the initials of the names of 3 places in Taito-ku, Yanaka, Nezu and Sendagi and it collectively means those three. This area is spotlighted because there remains the atmosphere of an old Japanese town.

“Tourist information and culture centre YANESEN” at Yanesen introduces tour guides and gives support to experience Japanese traditional culture to tourists from abroad. You can try Shodo(writing) and Suibokuga(drawing) with Fude(brush and Sumi(ink), Ikebana(flower arrangement) and Kimono(cloths) etc. This time, Kumiko Funayama, Ai Matsumoto and Hikari Shiina experienced Sado(tea ceremony)!

We came to a room of a building like an old house, a little away from YANESEN centre. We entered the small room with 4 and half of tatami mats (7.5m2) from the knee with our hands on the floor, taking shoes off.

Sado is a Japanese traditional tea ceremony. Therefore, there is a lot of customs and manners. But you don’t have to worry about it because the teacher kindly tells people with no knowledge like those 3 girls how to do it.

Here is how to taste maccha(tea) and wagashi(sweets) below.

First, you have maccha.
1. You wait for maccha to be served with silence.
2. Before you have maccha, say “Excuse me for going before you” to the next person and the next person smiles.
3. Take the bowl with your right hand and hold it with your left hand. Then you say “thank you for making the tea” to appreciate and turn the bowl twice to make the design face outward.
4. After having the tea, the next person takes the same steps.

Next, you take wagashi. Wagashi in winter was Nerikiri(a kind of Wagashi) with Japanese apricot’s flower and Anko(sweetened bean paste).
1. Express your appreciation.
2. Eat wagashi with chopsticks.
3. If you can’t eat all, cover it with Kaishi(paper napkin) and put it aside or into your pocket.

It is important in Sado to consider and thank other people in the ceremony. It looked difficult for the 3 girls at first, but they acquired the skills at last and enjoyed maccha and wagashi.

Let’s find your best plan at “Tourist information and culture centre YANESEN” which offers you many kinds of plans to see the attractive town, Yanesen.

Photo by kobadog
Translated by Morishi~

Kawaii AsiaKumikkyMaapipiMacchaPikarinSado

Author

Shoichiro Mori

I am an idol wotaku and my favourite groups are 3min. and HKT48. Hina Aizuki from 3min. is the greatest idol in the world. I lived in England for 2 years and now I study chemistry at university.

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