If you are sick of hastily gulping tea more as a matter of habit than for the sheer pleasure, take a leaf out of the Japanese.  If you can manage it, seek an invitation to a chanayo.  Of course, typically, you have to be rather special to be invited to one.

Chanayo  also called chado or sado is the Japanese tea ceremony, an elaborately formatted programme that can run to a couple of hours. This is normally not an intimate small gathering, never a one-person or couple affair. Nor is it a purely personal affair, in the sense that you cannot have a tea ceremony just because you wish to have an elaborate tea.

It is a celebration of hospitality, in a very special and spiritual way. Hospitality among the Japanese, like with the Indians, is considered almost a religious duty. And the Chanayo is a ritual that immortalises the occasion and the pleasure that the host and guests enjoy from each other’s company. No tea other than the special powdered green tea will do. In addition to the actual preparation of tea, the ceremony incorporates appropriate architecture, decor, atmosphere, conversation and attitude, gardening, ceramics, calligraphy, history and religion.

Elaborate ritual

The manner of preparing the tea is influenced by many techniques depending on practices and innovations at the various schools.  An extensively practiced one is the Ura Senke way of preparation. A full tea preparation with a meal is called a chaji while the actual preparation of the tea is called temae. A simple gathering for the service is called a chakai. The utensils are determined by the time of the year, time of day, on whether it is a special formal occasion as a wedding or homecoming etc.

The tea is prepared in a specially designated and decorated room called the chashitsu or tearoom.  It is almost completely bare except for a scroll called kakemono. The scroll provides the appropriate spiritual atmosphere.

Flowers for the  tea ceremony – chabana - are simple, seasonal and not very formally arranged. 

Pride of place

The guests assemble first in a waiting room where they sample the hot water to be used in the making of the tea. Once the host has received them, the guests enter the tea garden where they may relax briefly. 

The host then replenishes the water kept in a stone basin for the guests to wash their hands and mouth. Once they are refreshed, he invites them indoors. They  enter the tea room crawling through a small door, nijriguchi. In the tea room, occupying pride of place are the ceremonial kettle and hearth that are used for preparing the special tea. Above the kettle is hung a scroll, often heavily ornamented. Each of the guests read and ruminate on the scroll hung in the alcove above the kettle before taking their seats on elegant floor mats.

After greeting the guests, the host serves them the meal which usually consists of seasonal preparations and ends with a sweet.  The guests then retire to the garden while the host removes the scroll, replaces it with flowers, and sets out the utensils for preparing the thick tea called koicha. The tea is prepared by adding a very small amount of boiling water to the powdered green  tea in a single  bowl, something like a large soup bowl. All the guests drink from this, wiping the rim of the bowl before passing it to the next guest.

The bowl is then passed around along with the tea powder and the scoop for the guests to examine and admire.  The fire is  rebuilt for preparing the thin tea, usucha, which is served in individual bowls. The guests swirl the tea thrice in a clockwise direction and consider it auspicious to finish it in three sips.

The guests then thank the host and the long ceremony concludes. 

The entire ritual is an exercise in freezing a moment of calm and hospitality rather than a break for refreshment.

The actual tea tastes nothing like what one is used to here, and one has to perhaps to acquire a taste for it to be able to get the most out of the elaborate ritual.