Sweet pick at tea ceremony

It is a little cold cloudy day, but the sun comes and goes from breaks through a cloud sometimes. By getting the comfortable sunlight, my dining room is not so cold. I enjoyed my peaceful tea time with a confectionary and matcha in the room. The confectionary I had today were the leftover sweets from yesterday’s tea lesson. Our master is very generous and sometimes gives us the leftover sweets.


Yesterday’s confection was a little unique. It was made of a dried persimmon and has a white chewy sweetened dumpling in it. I love dried persimmons so I liked this confection. We usually use a sweet pick to have a confection at a tea ceremony. This is what I personally use.

But the dried persimmon is a little chewy as well and it was too difficult to eat it with the pick. You can bite it directly in this case. The sweets served at many tea ceremonies are usually easy to have it with the pick. This persimmon confection is not so suitable for tea ceremonies, our master said. But she also told us if you ever had a confection that is difficult to consume with the use of a pick, you may have it with your hands for too fragile ones or for biting it directly with very chewy ones.

Last night we had the last tea lesson of this year. For next year’s first event, we are planning to join a tea ceremony which will be held in a neighborhood city. I’m so much looking forward to it!