Newly designed Issoan Tea Site now Live

Great news!  The Issoan Tea Site is back up again.  It is newly re-designed to make navigation much easier. (And updating much easier for me).  Eventually, this blog will be incorporated into the site.  I still have to figure out how to tranfer the archives here to get them to show up over there.  Until then, you can read it here where all the archives are, or you can read new posts starting in February 2012 at Issoantea.com.   I'll let you know when the transfer takes place.

SweetPersimmon at the Hollywood WingDing

Meet us at the Whole Foods Hollywood WingDing on Saturday July 2nd from 12-5 pm.  They'll be closing off 43rd Avenue between Whole Foods and the Bank in NE  Portland, and making a party of it.

Besides the Hot Wing Throwdown competition (vote the best wings), there's going to be a beer garden, live music and exhibits from HandMade NW artisans (of which SweetPersimmon is one).  I'll be featuring handbags in my spacious 10 x 10 booth.

Admission is free to the public. Wings are $.50 each with a minimum $2 purchase for voting ballot.10% of the proceeds will benefit the Hollywood Theater.

Hollywood Whole Foods WingDing
Saturday, July 2nd, 12-5 pm
NE 43rd Avenue (between Sandy and Tillamook)
Parking available in the Whole Foods Garage
enter on NE 44th between Tillamook and Sandy.

Issoan Tea Room closed for renovations

My construction manager assures me that I will like it when it is finished.  Whenever there are renovations, we just have to live in the mess for awhile, but in the end it will all be worth it.  Just trust the process. 

I am rather excited about these renovations and I hope to post some other photos as the work goes on.

Meanwhile, classes still being held at Ryokusuido Tea Room.

Issoan Tea room closed for renovations

I want to acknowledge and thank Janelle for her donation to Issoan Tea School.   A box arrived the other day that contained 3 kimono (summer, hitoe and awase), 4 obi (3 summer and one fukuro), 3 juban, 2 hada juban sets, 4 obi jime and obi age sets, plus himo, obi ita, obi makura and 8 pair of tabi.   It is a complete kimono wardrobe for tea for the entire year.   Thank you so much Janelle.  It will be put to good use by the students and we will think of you everytime we see them worn.


In other news, Issoan Tea Room is closed for the month of October for renovations.   When they are complete, I'll post some photos.  

Tea house in Seattle

July 28, 2010
Recycled bottles pop up again, and this time they're a teahouse
By LYNN PORTER
Journal Staff Reporter

Architect Christopher Ezzell will spend next week in Occidental Park in a teahouse he fashioned from recycled plastic bottles.

The structure, created with the help of the Seattle branch of the Urasenke Foundation and others, will be made of 800 two-liter plastic bottles. Half of the bottles were previously used for a temporary art installation titled “waste not” in Pioneer Square's Nord Alley.

The cut-up bottles will be tied together with fishing line to make walls. The walls will hang off an aluminum hoop structure supported by aluminum poles, almost like a shower curtain.

“But hopefully it's going to look nicer than a shower curtain,” Ezzell said. The roof will be of Mylar previously used as a sail. Despite the effort at sustainability, some of the materials won't be green. “We couldn't be 100 percent LEED-certified,” quipped Ezzell, who heads a Vashon Island design firm called e workshop.

The project is equal parts architecture and performance installation. The idea is to build a three-dimensional structure where visitors can experience the intimate tea ceremony in which host and guest celebrate together.

“The experiment here is ‘can we have this experience in a busy urban setting and enjoy the values of (it)?'” said Ezzell, who is a student of tea at Urasenke. Inside the teahouse will be a platform made of reused cedar and cardboard, a flower arrangement and poem card that speaks to being in the moment. Ezzell and foundation members will demonstrate the tea ceremony Aug. 2 through Aug. 7, although the structure will be up through Aug. 8.

The teahouse is part of artSparks 2010, a program of King County's 4Culture and the city. The installations and performances — from street theater to temporary sculpture to music — will run through October in Occidental Park. The series began June 3 with “Build Here” by Room for Assembly, an artist collective that experiments with architecture.

Ezzell, who has a bachelor's in architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design, practiced architecture in New York City for 15 years before moving to Seattle. In 2004 he founded e workshop. The firm's work includes residential projects, Long Provincial restaurant and sidewalk cafe in downtown Seattle, the butter London shop at Sea-Tac, and the plaza and pedestal for the Alki Statue of Liberty in collaboration with Cast Architecture.

Copyright 2010 Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce

Iced matcha

The summer months of July and August are the most challenging for tea people.  Asa chaji held in the early morning to beat the heat for this time of year is considerate of guests.  Images of water, waterfalls, rivers, streams and water dripping on moss project coolness.  A larger room with reeds instead of shoji to let in any cool breeze can be used.  Sunlight in the tea room is to be avoided, so a darker room will seem cooler. White flowers, unfinished wood utensils and images of water birds also add to the illusion of coolness.

I have also made iced matcha tea in the tea room at this time of year. When bringing in kensui, also bring in a chawan of ice cubes with a porcelain spoon.  Put the bowl of ice near the wall with your left hand. Make tea as usual but use a little less water.  Before putting out the teabowl for the guest, take the bowl of ice in your left hand and with your right hand scoop one or two ice cubes and gently float them in the matcha.  The hot water will melt the ice, and the tea will be cooled without disturbing the foam on the top.

I'll be in Hawaii for the next two weeks, family business and then I'll be attending the Midorikai reunion and the Hawaii Chado Seminar.  In the meantime, Karla will be posting and I have a few things that will  show up from time to time. When I get back I'll have a lot to blog about.

Tea utensils that will last 400 years

There are many examples of tea utensils from the 16th century and earlier because they were so well taken care of.  Tea utensils were made to be used rather than put away in the closet, never to see the light of day.  So get out your tea utensils (dogu) and use them, but take care of them as if you want them to last 400 years.

I remember my sensei teaching me how to care for the iron kettle after class, how to wash and dry teabowls, and care for lacquer with gloves.  There is a certain way to tie the boxes that dogu come in so that you can stack them. Paying attention to detail with thoughtfulness and carefulness shows respect for the dogu, but also for yourself. The attention to detail in taking care of your dogu shows more about your character and state of mind than how perfect your temae is. 

Taking care of your dogu doesn't just apply to tea utensils, it is how you treat everything in your life. Like the famous baseball player Ichiro:

The man whose first name has come to symbolize greatness in hitting might also be the most meticulous player when it comes to caring for the tools of his trade. He rubs the soles of his feet every day with a rounded wooden stick. He cleans his own spikes and glove after games. And he prefers to carry his own bats, which are cut from Japanese ash wood called aodamo and custom made from specs chosen by Ichiro on a tour of the Mizuno factory in Japan in 1992. "I've never seen anybody that I've played with take care of their equipment with just carefulness, thoughtfulness. Most guys throw their gloves around. Not him," he said. "He told me that when he cleans his glove up after the game, that means he's already thought about the game that day and while he's wiping it off he is wiping off the game that day."

Want more detailed information on how to care for your tea utensils?  Here's a post written by Gary-sensei.

No Time for Tea

I've added an audio broadcast of Public Radio 360's "No Time for Tea," by Jennifer Lawton in the left hand column of this blog.  Click over and listen to the article as she describes her experience with tea ceremony in Kyoto. It's about 10 minutes long.

New Introduction to Chanoyu Class

Well gee, I just learned how to put some things into the left hand column.   You will see two new things today: an announcement of the new introduction class, and an Issoan tea school calendar. On the calendar, all classes will be listed as well as events, workshops, cultural activities in Portland and other things as I think of them.  Any suggestions for the calendar welcome.

Issoan will be starting 2 new Introduction to Chanoyu classes in January 2010. The classes are filling up fast, so if you'd like to take the class, please contact me soon.  As soon as the class fills up, I will close the registration and put people on a waiting list.

Tuesday evenings 7:00 - 8:30 pm for 10 weeks starting January 12
Issoan Tea School:
17761 NW Marylhurst Ct.
Portland, OR 97229.  
Two places left.

Friday evenings 6:00 - 7:30 pm for 10 weeks, starting January 15
Ryokusuido Tea Room:
3826 NE Glisan St.,
Portland, OR 97232.  
One place left.

What Remains: Japanese Americans in Internment Camps

My friend Margaret Chula, poet, has a new book out. What Remains: Japanese Americans in Internment Camps, Poems by Margaret Chula, Art Quilts by Cathy Erickson.

This collaboration of artists is very moving. Each art quilt has an accompanying poem written in a different voice from the camps. A young boy who had a pet rabbit, a young woman longing to dance the jitterbug, a husband/father fashioning furniture from scraps of wood.

"This is truly a beautiful, remarkable achievement -- two artists bringing history to life through visionary quilts and insightful writings." ~ Lawson Fusao Inada, Poet Laureate of Oregon

"Cathy Erickson's quilts, combined with Magaret Chula's luminous poems, evoke emotions of rage, regret, confusion, sadness, resignation and ultimately, hope." ~ Colleen Wise, Casting Shadows: Creating Visual Depth in Your Quilts.

"The dynamic interplay of Magaret Chula's poetry and Cathy Erickson's quilts is collaborative art at its best. Chula's poems weave a memorable story and voice into each visually stunning quilt -- together a powerfully beautiful interpretation of the Japanese American interment camp Experience." ~ Amy Uyematsu, 30 Miles from J-Town.

This is a subject that is close to my heart. One of my mother's best friends was interned at Minidoka, and college friend's parents met at Manzanar, and another a high school friend's father caught scarlet fever at Tule Lake.

In 1990, Portland, Oregon dedicated a park on the waterfront to the people who were rounded up and sent to the camps. It was part of an event that brought back -- some for the first time since being interned -- people who had lived and worked together in Portland. And I was on the publicity committee at that time.

I took some oral histories from returnees. What had happened to them after they had to leave their homes and businesses, during their internment and after their release. As part of my duties, I tried to place articles about the reunion and the internment in national magazines and newspapers. I remember one young assistant editor I contacted in New York. She told me that they did not publish fiction. I told her that it was the truth, and she said that the United States would never do that to U.S. citizens and I must be mistaken they must have been Japanese nationals and spies. She further told me that she had asked other people in her office in New York about the internment and nobody else had heard about it either.

You can see the park along the waterfront in Northwest Portland. The cherry trees bloom there every spring, and you can stroll along the path of stones carved with haiku about having your freedom taken away.

You can order your own copy of this wonderful book from:


Full Color, 108 pages, 8.5 x11, $24.95 + $3 S/H

Edited to add that the Address and ISBN for this book is wrong. Please order your book from:

Katsura Press
P.O. Box 10584
Portland OR 97296
ISBN: 978-0-9638551-1-4

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!

Serendipity

I had one day left in New York after the Friends in Tea conference. Roger had given a couple of us a ride as far as a train station near his house and we took the train into Manhattan. We checked into an inexpensive but nice hotel on the upper west side and had a fabulous Indian dinner before retiring.

The next day we went to Minamoto Kitchoan and I bought sweets to take home to my students. A friend was going to meet us for lunch, but on Monday many places are just not open for business. We were hot and tired and I was rather irritated. We wandered around for a time and found a small boutique shop with interesting interior décor. We asked if they knew of a place that sold Japanese antiques, and the sales clerk said that the gallery upstairs had some contemporary ceramics, but didn’t know if they were open.

We took the elevator up to the fourth floor and there it was. The tea room described in the Wall Street Journal Article was right there to the left. We invited ourselves in and Mr. Yoshi Munemura was gracious enough to show us the room, serve us some tea and talk about tea, tea utensils and the Yanagi Gallery

We took the elevator up to the fourth floor and there it was. The tea room described in the Wall Street Journal Article was right there to the left. We invited ourselves in and Mr. Yoshi Munemura was gracious enough to show us the room, serve us some tea and talk about tea, tea utensils and the Yanagi Gallery. The tea room itself was an 8 mat room with a host entrance and tokonoma on two sides for display. There was a temaeza set up with Japanese contemporary ceramics, a furokama, tea bowl, chaire, and mizusashi.


Then along the guest side was a footwell that you could put your feet into, and beyond that was a half tatami mat cut lengthwise so you could sit on it with your feet in the well.


We were lucky to have seen it, according to Mr. Munemura, because the tea room will be taken down for the next exhibition this fall. I love it when things like this happen.

A Tea Ceremony for Today

I found an article that was recently published in the Wall Street Journal on Tea Ceremony. Sen So-Oku, heir to the Mushakojisenke school of tea was introduced to the U.S. and will be teaching at Columbia University for a year.

He has designed a tea room at the Koichi Yanagi Oriental Fine Arts Gallery on Manhattan's Upper East Side, with a sunken foot well similar to the foot wells in American Japanese tatami restaurants. They refer to it as a “tea bleacher,” though that sounds so much like tea as a spectator sport. Please go read the article.

The point Mr. Sen wants to make is one that I have been teaching my students, that tea is a living tradition. Things change in tea not only to accommodate foreign influences, but also to the ages in which it is practiced. In Urasenke, we have table style tea ceremonies, new configurations of tea rooms, and modern tea utensils using 21st century materials.

And yet at its essence is the human relationship of host and guest. The sharing of food and drink and harmony among the participants as well as the awareness of the seasons that make us part of the whole universe. Simple, and yet at the same time very much needed in our modern world.

Acquiring tea utensils part 2

Many of my students are at a point of acquiring tea utensils. With ebay and the internet it is relatively easy to get tea stuff from Japan. A tea bowl for $10, a chabako set for $25 including shipping from Japan, a natsume for $5. They can all be had on ebay or online if you look hard are patient and bid at the right time. One might justify buying things because they are cheap and just for study.

But getting the best bargain isn’t the point of owning tea utensils. Sure, you can get a lot of stuff right now, but Rikyu says “Tea should not be an exhibition of what the tea man owns. Instead the sincerity of his heart should be expressed.” (from Rikyu’s 100 poems). Every tea utensil you acquire is a reflection of your heart. It is a big public statement and responsibility when you hold your chakai or chaji. Before purchasing, consider what statement about yourself your guests will take away when they view your piece. Rikyu also said, “Having one kettle you can make tea; it is foolish to possess many utensils.”

Buying utensils from ebay leaves much to be desired, such as the relationship you might have with the person who made it or owned it previously. Often the stories we can tell about a utensil are lost, and it seems to be so awkward during haiken when the guests ask about it to say, “I know nothing about this, I bought it on ebay.”

It was perhaps 3 years into my study of tea before I purchased my first teabowl. It was not easy to find one and I looked for a long time. I consulted with my sensei before I purchased it at an antique store. I knew nothing about its maker or history, but it was a very nice bowl. It was a little more than I could afford, and I gave a chakai for my sensei as a thank you for helping me. We used the bowl at the chakai and sensei really liked it. She said that it had presence and taste.

After the chakai, I carefully wrapped the bowl in a furoshiki because it did not have a box. When I got home, I dropped the chawan in the driveway and it shattered into dust. I only got to use the bowl one time. Ichigo, ichie (one lifetime, one meeting). So don’t get too attached to tea utensils, they are just things.

The Honest Scrap Award

Jordan at Succession of Insights blog has tagged me with The Honest Scrap award. I didn’t know that someone thought so highly of this blog to give me an award. It is rather humbling and makes me want to do much better at it.

These are the rules for acceptance :

1. List 10 honest things about yourself, hopefully interesting.
2. Pass the award on to 7 bloggers.

So here is my list of 10 honest things about myself, you may find interesting.

1. I am not Japanese, though I find the culture fascinating. I lived in Japan for a year and teach traditional Japanese tea ceremony.
2. I find national politics entertaining and follow it quite closely
3. We decided to stop taking the local newspaper when it was consolidated from 4 sections into two.Though I do miss having the newspaper to wrap things up or put down before a messy job like repotting plants or painting.
4. I kill plants. I used to take my sick plants to my mom to rescue. She would trade me with her blooming healthy plants and make my plants well again. Since she passed away, I cannot keep plants alive.
5. Though I worked in the technology field for more than 30 years, I am a technology laggard. I have not ever texted, nor am I on twitter. I have a mobile phone, but often leave it at home and rarely check it, so don’t leave a message, call the home phone.
6. I don’t miss my high paying corporate job, but sometimes it would be nice just to buy something without having to check the balance in my checking account to see if I can afford it.
7. I love my students. I love every single one of them. They are all different, they all have talents, they are all so dedicated. Thank you for choosing me.
8. I have a drawer full of blank journals. Nothing written in them yet, but I keep collecting them.
9. I have a closet full of art supplies that I have accumulated over many unfinished projects. I am great at starting, but lousy at finishing. Oh yes, I also have knitting stuff, crochet stuff, hand spinning stuff, paper stuff and other miscellaneous craft stuff that I have never finished.
10. I know how to cook, I just don’t like it that much. I started cooking for my family when I was nine years old and continued until I graduated from high school. My husband is a great cook. He finds it a creative outlook, and I am trying to see it that way, too.

And now for 7 bloggers, check ‘em out:

1. Fashion Incubator
   
2. First Draft
3. Nuido
4. You Sew Girl
5. Talk Left
6. Firedoglake
7. Emptywheel

It’s not my fault

I’ve been having car troubles lately. I have a 1989 Toyota Supra. I love this car. It is 20 years old. Some of the original parts are finally wearing out. Because this car has been so maintenance free, I don’t really have a regular mechanic. When we picked it up, the steering made funny noises that it didn’t before. It began to leak the power steering fluid and had to be replaced again. Then we noticed that there was anti freeze all over the driveway. So we had to take it back to the radiator place who replaced a hose. We got it home and the next day there was anti freeze all over the driveway again. Back the mechanic, the radiator place. We got it back and my husband opened up the hood and anti freeze shot up out of a hose with a hole in it. He spent the day replacing leaking hoses that should have been found by the mechanic or the radiator place. The car is now in the shop for the 6th time in two weeks. It’s still leaking anti freeze all over my driveway.

Each time we took the car back to mechanic or to the radiator place, we got the same plaintive cry, “It’s not my fault!” As a customer, I don’t really care whose fault it is, I just want my car fixed so I don’t have to keep bringing in my car and cleaning up my driveway. I am sure that both places would rather not see me again with the same problems.

How does this relate to tea ceremony? It may or may not, but I want service providers who want to help solve my problem rather than tell me it’s not their fault. I know it is an old car, but it’s been pretty reliable up to this point and I love it. I would feel much better about the inconvenience of taking the car into the shop numerous times if the mechanic just told me, “I am sorry for your inconvenience. Sometimes these old cars have lots of parts that wear out all at once. I’ll get right to work on it and do my best for you.”

I don’t think I have gotten the best from either the mechanic or the radiator place and that makes me want to take a look at the things that I do for other people. Whether it is a small thing or a large thing, am I giving them the best I can do, or am I just doing what I can to get by? How many times am I doing the same job over again that I could have done right the first time? How much inconvenience do I put others through? Do I shift blame to others?

Just like my sensei in Japan were not interested in my excuses for being late, I just wanted an apology and a promise not to inconvenience me in the future. That is accepting responsibility for their actions and being accountable for the results.

Dogu, more tea stuff

Dogu is a term for tea making utensils. My husband laughs at me and calls them tea toys. In fact, all you need for chanoyu is chawan (tea bowl), chasen (tea whisk), chakin (wiping cloth), fukusa (purification cloth), chaki (tea container) and chashaku (tea scoop). With these six utensils, you can do chanoyu anywhere.

When I first began to study Chado, there were not many Japanese utensils available. Even if I could afford them, they just were not available to me. I began to look at readily available things that could be used for tea. I still have many of those improvised utensils: a ceramic bowl for kensui, a cookie jar for a cold water container, containers of various sizes and shapes for tea caddies.

It is easy now to get acquisitive with tea utensils. Over the internet you can see lots of dogu for sale and you can spend a lot of money on these things. Collecting can become an obsession. But I recommend students to make purchases with restraint. If you have the six basic utensils, do you need to have one more thing?

A lot of dogu from my collection of utensils have come to me unasked. Some were gifts from my sensei and sempai. Other things passed from someone who knew someone else. Other things have been improvised utensils. I also have some utensils on loan from other teachers.

When making utensil purchases, I usually wait for a while before I purchase something. Usually it is something to help facilitate teaching or to use as an example for students.

One of Rikyu’s 100 poems states that, “Tea should not be an exhibition of what the tea man owns. Instead the sincerity of his heart should be expressed.”

C.H.A. Show and Sale

C.H.A.
Creative Handmade Art

With the study of Chado (Way of Tea) comes the appreciation of beauty.
C.H.A. is a Show and Sale of Articles of Beauty* by people who study Chado.
*may or may not be for Tea

Richard Brandt ~ Sanje Elliot ~ Linda Nelson ~ Craig Tenney
jan Waldmann ~ Barbara Walker ~ Ernie Walker ~ Margie Yap
&
Possibly a few Guest Artisans

Friday, August 1^st 4 pm ~ 8 pm OPENING GATHERING
Saturday & Sunday Noon ~ 4 pm

DoShin Tei
Jan Waldmann
8855 SW 36^th
Portland, Oregon 97219
503-245-8705

What's new at SweetPersimmon.com

I have some new products up at the SweetPersimmon.com website.

Heat wraps - These flannel wraps are filled with rice. Just put them in the microwave and wrap them around your body for soothing moist heat. They are 4 inches by 34 inches to wrap around your shoulders, neck, or back. Comes in it's own lined flannel carry bag. Great for Christmas gifts.




Also, just because I like making them -- Handbags and purses. I got a new sewing machine and I love to design and make handbags and purses. Choose from quilted shoulder bags, summer straw bags, purses or tea wallets. New bags going up all the time as I get inspired to design and sew them.







A Year of Haiku -- Haiku for everyday of the year. Spoken word CD now available.

Don't forget we have seiza zazen seats, matcha tea, tea ceremony utensils, oolong tea, tea travel mugs, kyusu teapots, incense, books and cards and gifts. Check it out SweetPersimmon.com.