Outdoor Tea Ceremony in Autumn

Every year in October a special tea ceremony event is held in Tokyo and after I visited it twice last year, I was really looking forward to going there again this year. And I enjoyed it a lot!  

The event I am talking about is the Tokyo Grand Tea Ceremony or in Japanese 東京大茶会. The event takes place over two weekends in the middle of October at two different venues - the Tokyo Open-Air Architectural Museum and the Hama-Rikyu Gardens. I visited both places in 2018. For this year I only decided to go to the event at Hama-Rikyu because here they offer more programs next to the tea ceremonies and it was easier for my friends to join in.

Outdoor Ceremony in English

The Tokyo Grand Tea Ceremony offers different kinds of tea ceremonies which you can choose from. They have a normal outdoor ceremony, one with English translation, one with sencha, one done by high-school students and a workshop where you can make matcha by yourself.

We decided for the outdoor ceremony in English which was held outside but under a clear plastic tent because it had been raining the day before. A tea master made two cups of matcha at the front for the first two guests. The other guests got their cups prepared in the background. Before this, wagashi was handed out to everyone. For this ceremony they had one wagashi called 月の光, resampling the light of the moon.

Explanations for the tea ceremony were held in Japanese and translated into English in between. It was a really nice atmosphere and for sure the green tea and wagashi were delicious. Furthermore, this ceremony only costs 300 yen.

Formal Indoor Ceremony

There are also more formal indoor ceremonies held during the Tokyo Green Tea Party. For this you have to apply online in advance, some weeks before the event (I think it was in August) and these ceremonies are pretty popular. You can see many people on the day of the event lining up at the ticket counter hoping to get tickets which had been cancelled or just not picked up.

Luckily I could get two tickets right away and we joined the indoor ceremony in the afternoon inside Hobai-tei, a traditional Japanese house in Hama-rikyu Gardens. We all sat down on a tatami roll, creating something like circle around the tea master. Because this was a formal ceremony everyone was sitting in the seiza position - and my legs were so dead already after 10 minutes. I couldn't feel them anymore and it took a while until I was able to stand up again after the ceremony ended.

For this ceremony the explanations were all in Japanese. Women dressed in kimono brought plates with wagashi to the room which everyone had to take by themselves with long chopsticks and pass the plate to the next person. The master, in front again, only prepared the cups for the first two guests - it would take several hours for everyone to be served by her. The other guests got their cups from the back. You had to bow several times - to the woman dressed in kimono bringing the cup, to the guest next to you, to the cup, ...

I'm unsure of all the rules and concentrated on watching the other guests who got their tea earlier. Even though my friend and I were the only foreigners in the group, I think nobody would have been angry about any small mistakes we might have made. Some guests even started small conversations with us after the ceremony ended.

It was the second time for me to be at this kind of more formal tea ceremony and it is really something you should experience at least once while you are in Japan. The tickets for this were prices 700 yen.

Other programs at the Tokyo Grand Tea Ceremony

Next to the tea ceremonies of the Tokyo Grand Tea Ceremony there was a stage program at the Hama-rikyu Gardens event site which we watched for a brief time. For foreign visitors there were tents where you could try out Ikebana, wearing a kimono and chopstick making. We did the first two things last year and it was very nice.

This year at the Tokyo Grand Tea Ceremony we joined the Japanese handicrafts workshops. For 500 yen you could make tsumami crafts (flower hairpins) or a flower herbarium. We went with the second one and it was so much fun and made for a great souvenir.

We had a wonderful day at Hama-Rikyu Gardens in the nice autumn weather. Unfortunately it was a bit too early for the autumn colors on the trees. However, I am looking forward to joining the Tokyo Grand Tea Ceremony again next year!