Contest Winners

Thank you to all who entered the contest.  We have two winners.   Sharku won the red raku bowl, and Karla won the book "Tea Here Now"   Please email your mailing address to my email in my profile and I'll send to you right away.

Prizes, prizes, prizes

This post will be the 300th post on the SweetPersimmon blog.  Thank you all for reading, following and commenting.   I love to hear from readers and I know there are many out there lurking.  So in honor of this milestone, I am running a contest --- With prizes!


Third prize is a CD of spoken word haiku "The Haiku Year," by yours truly.  A recording of haiku written over the course of a year, one every single day.  Yes, I'll include a written copy too.

Second prize is a copy of the book "Tea Here Now" by Donna Fellman and Lhasha Tizer.  Donna studied tea with me in Seattle and  is the director of Tea Education Alliance and owner of Bodhidarma Tea Company in Louisville, Colorado.
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First prize is a red raku teabowl.  This bowl was made by Tad Kamiya, an American potter.  There is a kiln crack in the rim, but it was repaired with gold and is a lovely.pinkish color.  Measurements are 120mm wide by 85mm tall.(that is 4 3/4" wide by 3 1/2" tall for us Americans). See photos below.

And now the criteria for the contest.   It's easy. It's all about mistakes.We all make them.  We are all embarrassed by them. It's not about perfection.  Minako sensei said, "If you are going to make a mistake, make it beautifully."   In the comments section of this post tell me about the worst tea mistake you ever made.  The juicicer the better.  So entertain us.  Tell us how you made the most beautiful of mistakes. Making them in public gets you extra points.  Prizes will be awarded by me as sole judge.

The contest will remain open until July 10.  Winners will be announced on the blog.  If you are chosen, please contact me with your shipping information.  I do ship internationally.

So I will start off with one of my favorite mistakes:   I was at a chakai in Kyoto, one with hundreds of guests.  It was at Yasaka shrine in the Gion in a large room, about 100 tatami mats.  It was one of the first chakai I attended in Japan.  There were about 100 little old tea ladies all lined up around the perimeter of the room, and I spoke not a word of Japanese.  We were pretty far away from where they were making tea, but they started serving the sweets from the kitchen. It was one of my favorites-- melt in your mouth senbei with a very pretty design on it.  After I passed the sweets tray I picked up my kaishi and the sweet dropped off of it and rolled onto the tatami.  And rolled, and rolled and rolled.  It kept rolling until it reached nearly the middle of the huge room and then it made a circle and took forever to settle down.  There was total silence as everyone watched the path of the runaway sweet.  Of course everyone was craning their necks to see whose sweet was that in the middle of the room.  I also was looking this way and that pretending that it was not my sweet.  Luckily one of the ladies serving tea from the mizuya stopped and picked it up on her way back to the kitchen.

The winners

Thank you for everyone who participated in my little contest. I was very happy to see that you took my questions seriously, and provided such thoughtful answers to my questions.

And now....

The winners are:

Nick who won Michael Soei Birch's120 page manuscript, "An Anthology of the Seasonal Feeling in Chanoyu.

And Zlati (temae) who won the CD of Japanese for the tea room.

Congratulations to both of you. Please email me with your shipping address. marjorie_yap@yahoo.com.


I'd like to refer you all to Phillytea blog. It has an excellent post on Tasting Tea. Enjoy.

Japanese words as prizes

I have finally decided what I will be offering for prizes for the contest in honor of the 250th blog post at SweetPersimmon. Thank you all to the regular readers, all of my sensei and sempai, students of Chado and those who have only a passing interest. You have made this blog experience rewarding.


Prize number 1 will be a CD of Japanese for the tea room. It features an explanation in English the basics of Japanese pronunciation and very basic Japanese grammar. It also has the dialog for usucha, usucha haiken, koicha, and koicha haiken. The dialog includes the English translation and then the Japanese slowly twice, then again at normal speed. The final part is the dialog for aisatsu before and after study.

Prize number 2 will be a copy of Michael Soei Birch's120 page manuscript, "An Anthology of the Seasonal Feeling in Chanoyu. This is a workbook, compiled by Michael Birch and written in English and romanji. It is filled with all kinds of information and it is a good source for seasonal gomei, or poetic names. The manuscript is divided into the four seasons -- Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter with information about each. It is further divided into each month that includes information about the month, perhaps haiku, appropriate scrolls, seasonal words and suggested gomei. It is illustrated throughout with Michael's calligraphy so you can see the kanji for each word, scroll, phrase or haiku.
Here are a few sample pages:The contest eligibility and the rules
Okay, to be eligible for the prizes (there will be two winners, one prize each) there are a few things you have to do. First, if you have a blog, please link it to this blog. I will also link to your blog in return. Second, you need to post a comment to this post. Not just any comment, but you need to answer two questions.

First question: How did you learn about chado and why are you studying? If you are not studying, what do you find interesting about the SweetPersimmmon blog?

Second question: How much of the traditional Japanese teaching methods do you think need to be incorporated in learning Chado outside of Japan? For those not studying, what do you think the best way would be to learn something like the Japanese tea ceremony?

I do ship internationally so everyone can participate. Please leave me a way to contact you to inform you if you have won.

The contest remains open until midnight PDT August 31st 2009. That's 10 days folks, to get your answers together and compose your answers. Winners will be chosen randomly. All decisions final. Prizes will ship by September 2. Good luck!