Thick Tea, Thin Tea, and Kokusai Street

One of my first friends on the island was a Facebook friend through a friend named Kelly. Everyone asks how we met...so I'll just go ahead and explain. One of the residents who graduated from Greenville Memorial the year before Chris, Jason, was also doing the military health professions scholarship, and he and his family were stationed at Camp Lejeune, NC. His wife, Hillary, met a running buddy named Kelly, who happened to be moving to Okinawa with her family.  Hillary hooked Kelly and I up on FB, and by golly...we ended up arriving in Okinawa almost at the exact same time. We first officially met at the "new to the island" orientation, and we quickly became good friends.

Anyway...getting back to the story...a few weeks after being on island, Kelly invited Claire and I to go with her on an MCCS tour down to Naha to view a traditional Japanese tea ceremony, and then go explore Kokusai Street (which is known for excellent shopping). It was cheap to go, the tour left after I dropped Ben off at school and got back right after he got home (he would just play at a neighbors for a few until I got home). I would get to see some people dressed up in traditional Japanese garb doing traditional Japanese things. I would get to go shopping and/or eating afterwards. And..to top it off..someone else would drive! Perfect.

After getting all loaded on the bus to Naha, our entertaining tour guide named Chris (how could I forget that name?) gave us a run down on the day's tour. Turns out, the description on the MCCS tours website didn't fully do justice to what we would be doing at the Japanese tea ceremony. We would not be viewing the tea ceremony, but partaking in one. Hmmm...this should be interesting (especially with a two year old). Chris told us how this ceremony was set up like a practice class for people who might one day be invited to a real tea ceremony, so that you wouldn't royally embarrass yourself.

He gave us the ins and outs...you take off your dirty shoes and put on clean shoes, walk through a pretty garden, wash out your mouth, take off your clean shoes, crawl through a small hole, compliment the teacher, wait for direction. He also told us we would be tasting 2 different types of tea and two different Japanese sweets. The first tea was called thick tea, and you shared one tea glass (which is more like a bowl) with the people at your table. You take in three draws (slurps) of the thick tea, give it three wipes and two turns, bow to the person next to you and hand off the glass. This goes on until the last person got theirs at the end of the table. Then we would have a sweet, then the thin tea. We would get our own glasses for thin tea. Hmmm, I started thinking. What would thick tea be like? I mean, thin tea, OK...I like tea and have had typical green tea. Not crazy about green tea, but it's just like flavored water. But thick tea?  The tour guide Chris mentioned that some people had to grow to love thick tea, as it was more of an acquired taste. As I said before, this should be interesting...

Kelly and Nora changing out of dirty shoes and into clean shoes.

The pretty garden you walk through and then the water basin from which you are supposed to rince your mouth out. Our tour guide reminded us not to spit the water out back into the basin. Ew. 

The tiny hole you have to walk through to get into the ceremony room. 

Our first sweet snack, mochi. Different, but yummy!

Thick tea in black bowl, wiping napkins in red bowl.

Our second sweet treat, made with adzuki beans and sugar.

Thin tea. It's SOO green!

The table where the sensei, or teacher, sat while she guided us through the ceremony. 

Claire and Kelly's daughter Nora getting some lessons on bowing.

This Japanese tea ceremony class was a wonderful learning experience. Here are just a few things I took away from the day:

1. I really, really like the simplicity and mild sweetness of Japanese style sweets. Deliciously different!

2. I really, really dislike green tea. Thick green tea can best be described as a hot grass milkshake. Thin tea is like hot grass milk. Not much different, but thick tea is definitely worse in my opinion. There will be no growing accustomed to it here. Ever. Never ever.

3. Two year olds who aren't used to green tea probably won't like it. Claire spit hers out all over their clean tatami mats and her dress. But, two year olds will probably like the sweets. :-)

4. I'm not sure if I would ever agree to go to another Japanese ceremony to actually take part. I would love to just be an observer. 

5. The Japanese custom of a tea ceremony is sacred and beautiful. Quiet and thoughtful. Shared and solitary. I just don't care much for the tea part.

OK....I am going to post this one and continue with a second blog about Kokusai Street another time because this blogger program keeps messing up...or I'm really doing something wrong. So, to be continued!!!