Japanese Tea With Muscovites at the Ukrainian House

There hardly is even one European who, among other standard associations connected with Japan (like samurai, kimono, or karate) will not recall tea ceremony. Far less people ever saw it firsthand. Even less have fathomed its inner sense. Saturday before last Kyivans got a rare opportunity to become spectators and even participants of chanoyu (Japanese for tea ceremony) and try to comprehend its essence, meaning, and beginnings. In the framework of the Japanese Fall in Ukraine-2002 series of cultural events representatives of the Moscow branch of the Urasenke tea school came to Kyiv to introduce us to Japanese tea.

In the center of the Presentations Hall at the Ukrainian House there are four and a half tatami mats (classical size of a Japanese tea house), tokonoma niche with a scroll reading, “One life — one meeting” (that is, every moment of life is unique, and every moment a man is like he has never been before and will never be again; thus every meeting, every tea ceremony in part, is unique), and a vase with a single flower. Hieroglyphs on the scroll are written in simple style, not artificial and far from being pretentious: nothing should distract the viewer from the meaning of the adage. The flower in the vase is a simple wildflower, always a local flora representative and never exotic guest from overseas. As explained Viktor Mazurik, professor of the Japanese Philology Department at the Moscow State University, who commented the whole ceremony, this single flower, whose brethren you probably passed on your way to the teahouse without noticing, is an embodiment and concentration of the beauty of a whole meadow in the bloom. The vase where it is placed has simple shape, looking rather coarse at first sight. Everything corresponds to the wabi principle, fundamental to Japanese culture, which was formulated by Vsevolod Ovchinnikov in his popular book Sakura Branch as “the beauty of simplicity.” This is aesthetics of skill reaching so high a degree of sophistication that, in Prof. Mazurik words, “it didn’t want to stay in captivity of its perfection and opened for the process of movement.” Because precisely this is the essence of the “art of tea,” as well as any of the traditional Japanese arts: meditation in movement, a way to self-perfection.

There are four volunteers from the audience sitting on tatamis in the improvised teahouse. This is an important phase of the tea rite, waiting. The guests dispose themselves, examine the scroll in the niche, pondering over the phrase written on it that is to pose a theme for the whole ceremony. At least they are supposed to think about this; in fact, maybe, they might simply wonder whether they would be able to sit for forty minutes in the traditional Japanese position, on their heels. At long last, the hostess appears and starts the ceremony of making tea. All the utensils, except for a linen tea cloth and bamboo scoop for ladling boiled water, are covered with the touch of age though impeccably clean. This is also an integral part of Japanese aesthetics. “The Europeans use plates made of silver, steel, or nickel, and polish it to make it shine; we cannot stand such luster. We also use silver utensils... but never polish them. On the contrary, we are glad to see this glitter come off their surface; to see them taking on a touch of age, growing dark... We... like things bearing traces of human flesh, lampblack, erosion, and rainwater runs,” wrote Japanese writer Junichiro Tanizaki. The process of making tea is quite simple — or rather seemingly simple. All the hostesses’ movements are regulated by tradition and polished with repetition. Powdered green tea is poured into a cup, covered with water boiled on a brazier, and whipped with a bamboo brush. The final product has nothing in common with the tea we usually drink in the morning (“canned tea,” according to Mr. Mazurik). It is a light green liquid whose surface is covered with bubbles. Speaking about its taste, unfortunately, this writer did not have a chance to test it, but, according to luckier persons, it is a sort of natural tea leaf, dried, then, dissolved in the water and blossomed out in its plenitude and essence. Well, let’s take it on trust. The more so that the main goal of the tea ceremony is not the drink but meditation, the condition of calmness, renunciation of things material, purgation, and perception of the true sense of objects, which is achieved through observing three major principles of chanoyu: harmony, respect, and cleanness. The harmony between the moods of the guests and their host is obtained through harmony in the teahouse decoration; utensils (incidentally, they represent the five elements according to Buddhism: wood: the shelf for utensils, fire in the brazier, earth in the clay cups, and metal: the teapot, and water in it), and, finally, the process itself. The movements of guests and their host, bows, passing teacups: everything creates the prerequisites for mutual empathy, synchronizing feelings and souls of those present. Respect toward each other, tea, the utensils (before passing a cup to a guest, the host turns it around twice; the guest follows him. Thus, the cup “bows” respectfully to both of them), and the whole ritual helps to open your soul toward the surrounding world, both animate and inanimate matter. Finally, there are ablution rites: the guests wash their hands at the tsukubai water basin, the host wipes the utensils with a tea cloth (incidentally, this is an interesting example of the proverbial omnivorousness of Japanese culture, which easily adopts elements of foreign cultures, absorbs them, and converts them in its own way: in Mr. Mazurik words, the movements with which tea ceremony master wipes the cup are borrowed from the Catholic mass). All this is aimed on inner ablution, cleaning up one’s mind.

Of course, a “secular” tea ceremony is only a simplified version of the true one. Of course, one is supposed to approach a teahouse through a tea garden with its “dewy ground” and a path of “flying rocks,” not through the noisy fall fair occupying all floors of the Ukrainian House. And one should come there not by elevator, but squeezing through a low door in the corner, leaving behind his/her ambitions, affections towards earthly comforts, and other things incompatible with the ritual. Moreover, the full ceremony usually lasts over four hours and includes, in addition to the “liquid tea” with confectionery, various treats, “thick tea” drinking which requires from guest no less skills than from host, and, last but not least, an unhurried conversation about the history of the cups in which tea was served, about the scroll in the niche, the beauty of a vase and the flower in it. And still probably all of us — those taking part in the ceremony on the tatamis, those drinking their tea sitting in their European chairs, and even those who remained only spectators — managed to some extent to feel the Zen peace and the beauty of the process and “synchronize our breath” at least partly.

And in the end let us recall the words of the outstanding sixteenth century tea ceremony master Sen-no Rikyu. “It is very simple. Heat the water, make tea, obtain the necessary taste. Don’t forget about the flowers: they must look fresh. In summer create coolness, in winter — pleasant warmth. That’s it.” And then he added, “If you show me a person who comprehends all this, I’ll gladly become his pupil.”