Japanese garden tea rooms:
- Tokyo: Shinjuku Gyoen
- Kanazawa City: Kenroku-en
- Matsumoto City: Ikegami Hyakuchikutei
- Uji, Kyoto: Marukyu Koyamen Tea Company
I am always ready to observe the peace, calm and solitude found in these kinds of tea rooms. I found they were conveniently quiet, almost empty of people.
There is no choice. There is green tea. In another matcha. I'm always happy to take what there is.
Something about Wabi Sabi (with thanks Leonard Koren)
The beauty of wabi-sabi is a turn of mind, not an intrinsic property of things. In other words, the beauty of wabi-sabi "happens," it does not reside in objects and/or environments.
Tea house "wabi-sabi" in Kenroku-en gardens
Wabi-sabi is interesting to me because it values "honest" natural processes such as ageing, blemishing, deterioration. As such these processes mirror our own mortal journeys through existence. Accepting such environments inclines us towards a more graceful acceptance of mortality.
More cerebral observers suggest that Wabi-sabi is, at root, an aestheticization of poverty—albeit an elegantly rendered poverty.
Wabi-sabi then is a kind of simple beauty available to us all.
Wabi-sabi then is a kind of simple beauty available to us all.
With Kazuyo
With woman who served tea
Kanazawa: Kenroku-en tea house
Ikegami Hyakuchikutei: Tea Garden in Matsumoto
Clean, maintained but worn gardens at Matsumoto
Uji Tea Factory tea rooms
Happy tea drinking!
