What the word means

Chanoyu (茶の湯) names the concrete practice of making and serving matcha within the Japanese ritual setting. It is distinct from sadō or chadō (茶道, «the way of tea»), which refers to the study and doctrine around that practice. Learning chanoyu is learning the gesture; learning chadō is understanding why each gesture is there.

The space: the chashitsu

The tea room (chashitsu) is an architecture designed specifically for chanoyu. Its most important features:

  • Minimum size: 4.5 tatami (about 7.5 m²) for the style Rikyū codified. The smallest rooms have only 2.
  • The entrance is the nijiriguchi, a low opening about 60 cm high that makes every guest stoop to come in, whatever their social rank.
  • The tokonoma (alcove) holds a kakemono, a hanging scroll of calligraphy or painting, and a chabana, a flower arrangement of extreme simplicity.
  • The walls are earth or clay, with no shiny finishes. The wabi of the space begins before any tea is served.

The steps of the ceremony

The protocol varies between schools and between a chaji (full) and a chakai (shortened), but the central elements stay the same:

  1. Preparation beforehand: The host cleans the room, prepares the entrance garden (roji), chooses the kakemono and the flowers, and lays out all the tools.
  2. Welcome in the garden: Guests wait in the machiai, the waiting room. The host receives them in silence with a bow. They walk the roji in the protocol order.
  3. Purification: Guests wash their hands and mouth at the tsukubai, the low stone basin, before entering the chashitsu.
  4. Contemplating the tokonoma: Before sitting down, each guest looks at the kakemono and the flowers, acknowledging the theme the host has chosen.
  5. The kaiseki course (in a chaji): A light meal in several courses. The point is to prepare the palate, not to fill you up.
  6. Making the koicha: The host ritually cleans each tool (the purifying cloths: chakin, fukusa, kobukusa). The thick tea is made with precise, slow movements.
  7. Receiving the chawan: The principal guest receives the bowl and turns it twice clockwise before drinking, so as not to put their lips to its finest face. They take three and a half sips.
  8. Serving the usucha: Light tea for each guest. The movements are faster, the atmosphere more relaxed.
  9. Closing: The host takes the tools away. The guests examine the chasen and the chawan. One last bow, in silence.

Guest etiquette

Taking part in a chanoyu means knowing a few basic rules, which any school teaches before your first ceremony:

  • Wear clean, unobtrusive clothes. In Japan, a kimono. In the West, neutral clothing and no perfume.
  • Take your socks off only where there are wooden floors: on tatami you wear white socks.
  • Return a bow for every bow the host makes.
  • Take the bowl with both hands, rest it in the left palm and steady it at the side with the right.
  • Turn the bowl before and after drinking.
  • Do not speak loudly. Silence is the highest courtesy.

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