The rakuware bowl named “Wabi” resides in
my china cabinet along with its companion, a whisk crafted
from a single piece of bamboo. The kettle is not
yet whistling when I place these Japanese utensils on the
countertop in the tiny kitchen of my Manhattan apartment. My
recipe for tranquility in the busy city: a quarter
teaspoon of powdered green tea, add hot (not boiling) water,
blend with whisk, add more water, whip to a delicious froth.
A
verse from the T’ang dynasty comes to mind as
I take my first sip: “Where do you live? In
the green mountains by the pure water.” I am
both host and guest in my own private tea ceremony. This
calming and restorative ritual takes its cue from the Japanese “cha-no-yu” or
way of tea.
The thick tea powder known as “matcha” is
made from the youngest leaves of the tea growers’ oldest
shrubs. My supply of this elixir comes from the Uji hills
near Kyoto, where the priest Eisai planted the tea seeds
he brought back from China more than a thousand years ago. “In
this degenerate age, tea is the most wonderful medicine
for nourishing one’s health and prolonging life,” wrote
Eisai in a book that he gave to the ailing shogun along
with a sample of powdered tea.
I became a tea devotee during a 3-1/2 year sojourn in
Kyoto, where I had the unique experience of living in rooms
originally designed for the tea ceremony. My curiosity
about such architectural elements as the “nijiri-guchi” (wriggling-in
entrance), the “tokonoma” (a display alcove),
and the low doorways and rush ceilings inspired me to study
the way of tea and incorporate it into my daily routine.
Sen Rikyu, the first tea master, brought harmony to a
strife-torn era by transforming tea preparation into a
ritual akin to Zen meditation. My tea room was an exact
replica of one that he built for the imperial villa. The
lattice window on the east wall was placed after careful
consideration of where the light would fall: on the alcove
with its single scroll, the iron kettle, guest mat or rush
ceiling. When it came to the rustic simplicity of the tea
hut, Rikyu believed the smaller the size, the greater the
spiritual connection between host and guest. I was delighted
to learn the diminutive four-and-a-half mat room owes its
origin to a passage in Buddhist scriptures in which a bodhisattva
and 86 disciples are welcomed into a room of this size!
Since the owners of my tearoom had done the unheard of
thing of renting it as living quarters, I felt free to
be unconventional. Besides, the “nijiriguchi” door
(a mere 25 inches square) proved to be a major inconvenience
for everyday use. The tiny “wriggling-in” entrance
symbolizes the guests’ passage from the outside world
to the spiritual space of the tearoom. Prior to a
tea ceremony, it is left open slightly, with the host’s
sandals propped against the wall. When I was home
alone, the open doorway served as a picture window or a
window seat overlooking the moss garden. It became
a favorite spot to read the morning paper with a steaming
bowl of “genmaicha” (“sencha” green
tea blended with brown rice) in hand. As winter turned
to spring, I sipped plum blossom tea. In the
summer, I enjoyed “mugicha,” a barley beverage
that is served ice-cold. My traditional tea bowl
accommodated just about every variety of tea, including
the sublime Gyokuro, which is a sencha made from young
leaves of tea plants grown in the shade.
The irregularly shaped tea bowl “Wabi” got
its name from the phrase “wabi sabi,” which
has myriad meanings in Japanese. Wabi-sabi’s
qualities are asymmetry, simplicity, austere beauty, naturalness,
subtle profundity and unworldliness, according to Soshitsu
Sen XV, the fifteenth generation Grand Master of the Urasenke
School of Tea. From the vantage point of my nijiri-guchi,
I learned to appreciate the wabi-sabi qualities of budding
trees or those that had spent their blossoms over a tree
in full bloom. I came to value the imperfect beauty of
my tea bowl.
The mottled bowl came from the same antique shop where
I first glimpsed a kimono-clad gentleman whose understated
elegance bespoke a tea master. A letter of introduction
gained me entrée to gatherings at his home where
I did my best to memorize the proper sequence of gestures
for preparing tea. What my body forgot, my
spirit remembers. Today, a bowl of tea in my New
York apartment, half a world away from Kyoto, sets me thinking:
I wonder who is living in my tearoom today and what are
their favorite teas?
Tricia Vita is a journalist who writes frequently
about architecture, travel, and popular culture. She
is the translator of One Thousand and One-Second
Stories by the Japanese Dadaist Inagaki Taruho.