Japanese Tea Ceremony Lessons for Beginners - Shofuso Japanese House and GardenNEW

Have you ever wanted to learn the art of Japanese tea ceremony?   Register for Tea School on Saturdays at Shofuso and begin the journey. Beginner's lessons begin at 9am.  Advanced lessons start at 11am.   For more information, please contact the Chado Association of Philadelphia at info@phillytea.org or Shofuso staff at info@shofuso.com.

Date
April 7, 2012

Like many arts, tea ceremony has many levels of complexity - the basics can be learned in a few months, but to truly master it takes a lifetime. For beginners, we have group lessons that introduce the student to the basic skills and principles of chanoyu. After several months, you'll be able to do conduct a standard tea ceremony from beginning to end.

In this highly personalized instruction, students will confer with teachers to determine a 9:00 am or 11:00 am class time over four Saturdays in September.  The fee is $100 per month of study, with a one time materials fee of $50, payable to the teacher on the first day of class.  Students will renew monthly.

Tea ceremony - called "chanoyu" or "chado" in Japanese -is at once an art form, a spiritual discipline, a way to socialize, and a window on Japanese culture. Practiced for more than 450 years, this unique way of sharing tea has spread around the world.

A tea gathering starts when the guests assemble outside the tearoom and enter one by one. The host enters through a separate entrance and carries in the utensils one by one. Each item is carefully cleaned in front of the guests before the tea is served, allowing both host and guest to attain a pure state of mind before drinking the tea. The goal, for everyone involved, is to share a profound experience of being alive in the present moment.

Our teachers are licensed by the Urasenke school of chanoyu, one of the largest in Japan, which is headquartered in Kyoto. A student will typically study for ten years or more before being granted a license to teach, requiring a truly lifelong commitment to tea!