Chaji notes for Kristina
These are all specifically things we’ve messed up before that Iwama-sensei or Ro-sensei has yelled at us about:
Preparation things
- Make a list for everything in each box when you’re packing.
- When unpacking, have one person be in charge of gakuen dougu (normally hanto). Ro-sensei will want to return gakuen dougu immediately once chaji finishes, so that same person should repack as soon as possible once chaji finishes.
- Make sure your hiire sumi is an appropriate length. You should measure/cut these beforehand.
- Bring zatsuzumi to use for warming the hiire.
- Bring enough sarashi to totally cover the mizuya tana (or at least as much as you can)
- Bring something specifically to use as a kadai. We’ve tried using the kumidashibon as a kadai, and Iwama-sensei yelled at us. Our kadai is broken, so it’s okay to bring a second large tray instead.
- Print a timing sheet and have mizuya (Jaden) fill it out. Hanto will be too busy for most of it
- Lunch for the three people on the hosting side should come around 11 or 11:15am. One of the guests will have to leave early to pick it up, and that’s okay.
- Check to make sure that the hanaire you selected can fit on the kugi. Some of the thicker bamboo hanaire from school don’t fit.
- Bring way more towels than you think you need. And leave the towels there the whole day.
- Do hanazumori the night-before or morning-of. Sugitani-sensei will most likely end up doing your flowers anyway, but she will want to see what you intended to do with them.
- Bring a towel for the teoke (it should be completely soaked, but not set directly on tatami or wood)
Generally important note: when Iwama-sensei arrives, things will become chaos. Just uh, be aware of that.
Before-guests-arrive things
- Start boiling water pretty early, maybe around 12:30. You only need around 5 bottles or so.
- Start warming the hiire also rather early, by 1pm at the latest. The zatsuzumi can take a long time to catch, so start heating that by around 12:40.
- Just a note, I started heating mine up around 12:50, and the zatsu didn’t catch well enough, so my hiire were cold.
- First mizumaki should happen around 12:50 or so. You’ll have to do it again before guests arrive, but Iwama-sensei will freak out if it’s not done by then.
- Start heating the actual hiirezumi earlier than you think you need it. The google doc says 10 minutes before guests arrive, but it’ll take maybe 10 minutes to heat up, then at least another 5 minutes to do the hiire haigata. I would start this heating the sumi around 1pm.
- Shitabi is less time-sensitive, maybe start heating around the same time as you do the hiirezumi.
- Kumidashiwan happens really fast — the guests arrive, and suddenly you have to serve them. You should have the machiai tabakobon all set up in the machiai by around 1:15 or 1:20. As soon as you finish that, you should start on kumidashi so that it’s ready to serve the moment the guests sit. You have to heat up with oyu first too, and that slows things down.
During-chaji things
I’m going to skip this for now — once you’re in the tea room, everything is up to hanto and mizuya. But in general for this, hanto and mizuya just need to be aware of what’s going on in the room and make sure they come in at appropriate times.
After-chaji things
- Don’t forget to aisatsu mizuya-san when you finish
- In the following days, make sure to aisatsu the relevant people the first time you see them. You’ll have formal gorei with the office, but with Sugitani-sensei, you need to arrange your own gorei. Ro-sensei will freak out and try to find you if he catches Sugitani-sensei free, but if you notice her floating around the sensei room, you can also catch her on your own.
General guide
So those were all things that we specifically screwed up during our chaji. For a flow in general, this guide from Elizabeth is really good: