CuriousEpicurean

Thick Tea Ceremony - 1996
Originally uploaded by SecurusIam

I was going through a box with old photos tonight. And lo and behold, I came across these photographs of the Japanese Tea Ceremony Class during my undergrad. This photograph was the "Thick Tea Ceremony" group. And I was the only woman in a group of men, the other ceremonies (the light meal and the thin tea) had several women in it. I was "volunteered" by my thick tea buddies.

This Chanoyu (tea ceremony) was held at our professor's home in Arcata in Northern California surrounded by the redwood forest. As you can see, it was gorgeous. There was a stone garden and coy pond.



Our tea masters who flew from Japan




The ceremony took about 4-5 hours long ...and then afterwards...the gang partied with sake, grilled goat offered by one of the assistants who had a farm nearby, and more sake.

This was over ten years ago... Oh my. I think I threw my research paper in this class (over 20 pages worth) into the bonfire at Clam Beach the night before graduation. It was a pretty embarrassing piece of work but still managed a B+ on it. Sigh.

Our group - I wonder what everyone's doing now? I'm pretty sure they are not blogging about tea like the dork I am.