The Japanese tea ceremony: steps and meaning

The Japanese tea ceremony: steps and meaning

Chanoyu means "hot water for tea". It refers to the Japanese tea ceremony, in which matcha is whisked in a bowl with a bamboo whisk and served to a guest. The sequence is fixed and every movement has a purpose. None of it is decoration.

Where it comes from

The monk Eisai brought powdered green tea from China to Japan in 1191 and described it in 1211 in his text Kissa Yōjōki. In the monasteries matcha was first a way of staying awake through long meditations. The ceremony took the shape we recognise today in the sixteenth century, through Sen no Rikyū.

The four principles

Rikyū condensed the whole attitude into four words: wa (harmony), kei (respect), sei (purity) and jaku (tranquillity). They do not describe a mood. They describe conduct in the room: how you enter it, how you hold the bowl, how you pass it on.

The kit, and what each piece does

• Chawan, the bowl. Wide enough to work the whisk, thick walled enough to hold the heat.
• Chasen, the bamboo whisk. Cut from a single piece of bamboo, with 70 to 120 tines depending on the style. It breaks up the powder and beats in air.
• Chashaku, the bamboo scoop. Two level scoops come to roughly 2 g.
• Natsume, the tea caddy, and hishaku, the bamboo water ladle.
• Fukusa, the silk cloth used to purify the utensils in front of the guest.

A metal balloon whisk will work, it just works worse. The chasen has more tines than anything in your kitchen drawer, and that is precisely where the fine, stable foam comes from.

Usucha and koicha

There are two preparations. Usucha, thin tea, is the everyday one: around 2 g of powder to 60 to 70 ml of water, whisked briskly, with foam. Koicha, thick tea, is the more formal: roughly twice the powder in less water, not whisked but stirred slowly into a thick, glossy paste. Koicha demands a high grade, because any bitterness arrives unfiltered.

The sequence of a usucha round

1. The room is prepared and aired, the utensils laid out.
2. Chawan and chasen are warmed with hot water. This softens the whisk so the tines do not snap.
3. The water is poured away and the bowl wiped dry.
4. Two chashaku scoops of matcha go into the bowl, sifted if the powder shows lumps.
5. 60 to 70 ml of water at 70 to 80 °C follows.
6. Whisk in a zigzag from the wrist, about 15 seconds, until a fine layer of foam holds.
7. The bowl is offered with both hands, its front turned towards the guest.
8. The guest turns the bowl slightly before drinking, so as not to drink from the front.

The short version for your kitchen

Without tatami and without a kimono, the essentials work identically: sift 2 g, add 60 to 70 ml of water at 70 to 80 °C, whisk in a zigzag, drink while the foam holds. Three minutes, start to finish. The single mistake that ruins everything is boiling water. After that even the best matcha tastes of scorched spinach, and nobody will believe you that it was the kettle's fault.

The matcha in the bowl

For usucha, and all the more for koicha, you want a first-harvest ceremonial grade. Our Matcha Zen Ceremonial grows in shade in Jingshan (China) and is processed at Zhejiang Camel Transworld in Yuhang (Hangzhou). Slow stone milling, which is where the fine powder, the living colour and the fresh aroma come from. 100 g at £19.00, around 50 bowls, so roughly 38p each.

If the formal ceremony feels remote but you want to start at home, the plain version is in how to prepare matcha. What has been measured in clinical trials, and in whom, is set out with full references in our page on the published research.