General:
- wiping koicha, 2 wipes is usually sufficient. Make sure to be fast. For tsume, still don’t go too deep (don’t go beyond the tea line. You want to be able to see where was drank), could do 3. Release from the wall of the chawan instead of going up, don’t just push tea against the wall. He uses the left corner instead of the whole thing to make it less messy.
- He points to center, not L knee with hishaku
- Okahachi has metal doburo (metal but lacquered black). Would be very cool to get!
- His yokan recipe
- 300g sugar an water each, 8g kanten. Bring to boil, then leave for 2m, then pour into nagashikan 2m, then pour into nagashikan
- (Boiling for a little longer will make it thicker, less mizu-yokan)
- His preference: shokyaku should never need to move the dougu at deai before returning it to teishu.
- Shokyaku, usually, is coming from the corner of the kinindatami (3 guests in a yojohan)
- They should sit with their knees over the line of the kinindatami heri
- Dougu goes to them, then they move it straight out to teishu (no “adjusting” it first)
- Hishaku positioning:
- In the past, it used to be go-flat for everything. Placing on kama, picking up from kama, taking from futaoki, etc etc.
- But now, general guidance is to be “natural.” For pickups etc, this means taking once the hishaku tip hits your palm, which ends up being approximately in line with your forearm. For hikibishaku, this also means be natural for placement (hishaku handle should be in line with your forearm, not go-flat).
- Hikibishaku
- He likes to pause for a moment after wrapping the thumb around.
- Also, he sees symmetry between Shin no Gyo ro thumb placement, and hikibishaku. In both cases, you are “wearing off” part of the hishaku with your thumb (even though hishaku are only used once).
- Zendashi
- Hold the mizusashi more from the front, rather than the back as usual for hakobi, when pulling out for zendashi. It will make your arms less awkward when you place it down.
- Tana (kokodana)
- Generally, if a tana has 2+ shelves, it must have an usuki on it.
- For kokodana specifically, it is perfectly legal to leave the usuki on the lower shelf.
- “When I did the march of dimes, and I did 99 temae in a row, I used kokodana. Every other temae had the usuki on a different shelf. Hishaku + futaoki went naname like usual. Sometimes it went up, sometimes it went down.”
- Temporary chashaku placement
- He doesn’t know for sure where to put chashaku when replacing natsume after tana usucha if the chashaku is unstable on the mizusashi. Placing it on the tana is definitely a legal move, but he’s not sure if it goes ten-ita or ji-ita. His feeling is ten-ita, given the precedence in daisu.
- Zouge, remember there are no elephants in japan lol. So the reason they don’t have maker or gomei is because they came from abroad.
Satsubako notes:
- Kyaku brings back the first bowl at the snap of the natsume kiyome
- If doing tsutsumibukusa, the only thing the tsutsundabukusa is used for is natsume kiyome. Everything else, including chashaku kiyome, is done using the regular fukusa.
- note: Extra fukusa goes away after you exit the first time with the kensui.
- TWO sweets!
- One regular, one mizumono
- His thinking: It’s not because it’s shikaden related or anything. It’s just because you are serving a ton of koicha, and you need something extra in your stomach. It’s common for households to have fruit, so especially if this is a sudden kind of situation, cutting up some fruit is an easy thing to do.
- Yes, this really is straight up a konarai temae. This means:
- No gyo no te at the door
- No sorei
- All abbreviations as usual (only 1x up for chasentoshi during shimai, skip yohosabaki + only 2x doubuki during kiyome, etc)
- Take dougu when standing with the kensui
- His notes on the history:
- In the past, tea could only be purchased once a year. One tsubo would contain (some number?) of bags of koicha tencha, each bag capable of serving 10 kyaku.
- If you didn’t have much money, you may get a smaller tsubo worth of tea.
- One half bag (“5 mome” size iirc) was capable of serving 5 guests. It used to happen that kyaku would bring one half bag for the teishu at zenrei, giving them sufficient time to grind the koicha tencha for the chaji the next day.
- Note: This was rather costly, and had a direct impact on the number of chaji you could do in the year. So, it really was quite a treasure to be giving a chaji’s worth of tea, and it was more meaningful to use it than today.
- As the story goes, Rikyu used a kayoi-bako (traveling box?), either what the guest brought the tea in or a box from somewhere in the mizuya.
- Present-day, tea is already ground, so it may be given on the day. Because of this sudden-ness though, it is permissible for the teishu to decline to use the tea for satsubako.
- Practical note: For some toriawase etc, it’s easy to quickly incorporate the hako. But for others (daitenmoku, kasanejawan, etc), it’s not!
- He does atsukai the side of the box when removing chaki from them.
- Strike out my prior notes: he does not like putting your hands in a C anymore to transport the box. Instead, just keep your hands flat on the side (the usual teaching), then do the thumbs turning thing from imai / kyakutsuki.
- Lid placement:
- At nakadachi, kake L
- During temae, kake front
- At the end after haiken: bring box heriuchi, then lid flat to R (geza)
- Kyaku: flat on ground following shokyaku / non-shokyaku rules for up/down. Lid stays naname on box when passing, box herisoto always.
- TODO He said that he thinks you do kosusui between koicha (no sarasara). But, he wasn’t sure. Check on this. ➕ 2023-05-21 📅 2023-05-26 ✅ 2023-05-21
- Yes! Confirmed on the website I have for Shikaden Notes from Gunji-sensei.
- His recommendation, because you aren’t sara-sara’ing between bowls, is to make the tea a little thinner for the first koicha. That will make it easier to clean.
- Don’t forget to ask for hako for haiken. O-natsume, o-chashaku, o-otsubukuro, o-hako no haiken.
- Haiken question order from the guest is Chaire → shifuku → natsume → chashaku → otsubukuro → hako.
- A little weird, but “Guests may reuse the same kojakin for the second bowl (because it’s potentially unexpected ← my addition), or a chakin otoshi may be provided by the host.”
Karamono notes:
- Kyaku haiken
- No need to 2h the lid, but he usually keeps his hand around for emotional support
- Prior notes are correct (open kobukusa first, then karamono on it, then view)