Tea kneading workshop 2

Teachers showed how to knead the leaves. I tried to imitate the movement, but it was quite difficult to knead how I wanted. The teachers maneuvered the leaves like dancing in their hands. But the movement of my hands as a beginner, were so gawky like using chopsticks with my left hand. But I was absorbed in kneading and lost track of time by forcusing on the tea leaves. (I finally got how to post a video! yes!!ヽ(^。^)ノ)






The leaves before kneading were wet and soft (on the left), and they got dried and hard by kneading (on the right).




The thing I was surprised was that there is “kata” (the proper way of procedure and movement) in the process of manual tea making. All the tea making process and movement has been formalized, like the tea ceremony. I was impressed how matured the traditional tea-making technique is.