Enshu’s tea room

One of the reasons that I wanted to visit Ocha-no-sato tea museum is a tea house and garden by Enshu Kobori.

The garden has ponds.  You can walk around the ponds and enjoy different sceneries of the garden.  This is not really my type of garden, but it is elegant and beautiful.

The house is a restored architecture of magistrate's office and traditional house with tea rooms.  The design of Enshue’s house is formal and geometric compared to Rikyu’s natural rustic tea room, Taian.  Both of them are simple and nice.

You can have matcha in one of the Enshu’s rooms.  When we visited there, we were the only guests.  We sat on tatami-mats and waited for the tea to be served.  The photo above is taken from the position where I sat.  There was a delightful surprise, there!  At most of tourist spots that serve matcha, the tea is usually prepared in another room and is brought into the guest’s room.  But here, the host appeared with tea utensils in our room, and stared preparing the tea in front of us!!   I was so excited about it.  An assistant served sweets and talked to us.  It was pretty much a casual tea ceremony!   In the meanwhile, another big party of guests came in and joined us.   The host prepared a few servings and the rest of bowls were prepared in the back.  It was a quick 10-15 minutes, but we are very much satisfied with it.  

This is a rare place for tourists where you can see actual matcha preparation.  If you have never seen it before, this is a good place (500yen)! 


Ocha-no-sato tea musume (Japanese): http://www.ochanosato.com/guide/chashitu.asp