Never has there been a reason for me to bus all the way to Okabe on a non-school day, except for the Saturday of the sports festival, which I would have been shunned for not attending. But the students gave some surprisingly convincing appeals for me to visit local hotspots such as:
- A hiking course that includes an old railroad tunnel people can explore with flashlights
- A place where fireworks are assembled and people can view test launches
- A park with a “field of huge beautiful stones” (I may have to see it to completely understand)
- A teahouse upstream on the Asahina River—with tea ceremonies for the Gyokuro green tea grown all over the hills of the area.
In his collection Earth House Hold, Gary Snyder details his experience living in Kyoto’s Shokoku Temple, practicing zazen, a form of Zen Buddhist meditation. In a letter sent from Shokoku-ji, Snyder mentions to his friend Philip Whalen: “I study tea ceremony with the old lady who lives upstairs here once in a while now but I haven’t got to pick up a teabowl yet, I’m still practicing unfolding a purple napkin.”
Snyder’s amusing confrontation with the exactness of tea ceremony, along with my students’ intriguing descriptions of their local teahouse (“The green tea is very bitter and delicious,” “please enjoy eating the Gyokuro tea,” “you can touch the fish in the pond,” etc.—were these mere errors in word choice?)…yes, this was enough to warrant two busses and the 500 yen entrance fee to Gyokuro-no-Sato, quiet on an overcast Saturday afternoon.
I’d heard the implements—bowls, utensils—are cleaned and the tea is prepared directly in front of the participants at a tea ceremony, but at this place, all ritualistic cleaning, tea preparation, napkin-folding, etc. was done in a room adjacent to the tatami area where participants were seated. At Gyokuro-no-Sato, it seemed like much of the ceremoniousness was behind the scenes. (But this could also be my lack of knowledge on the subject.)
Still, the kimono-clad ceremony host served the two tea choices with reverence. Matcha in a simple raku bowl: placed on the tatami with two hands, then rotated precisely so the bowl’s “front” faces the drinker; host exchanges bows with drinker. (Matcha is powdered green tea that has been whisked in hot water, creating the bubbly froth on top...and it was delicious, and a bit bitter.)
Option two involved a bit more commitment. The Gyokuro tea arrived in a covered, thin-walled cup—this tea not powdered but whole leaf. The tea is sipped from the covered cup, the drinker adding additional water from the tall teapot if desired. 
So what is the short teapot for, and that little wooden fork? That part about eating the tea? Yeah, that was correct. Much to my chagrin, that teapot contained a mixture of soy sauce and vinegar, for pouring onto the used tea leaves before eating them (to promote good health). And as I am not one to knowingly, ahem affront Japanese tradition, I tried it.
And it tasted something akin to soggy, salty grass clippings, I'd guess. I desperately wanted to floss.
At least the last item on the tray was a cute little treat—rice paste, I believe, with a sweet red bean paste filling. The design of the confection is changed to correspond with the season; everything in the teahouse, in fact, shifts, from the flower arrangements to the calligraphy scrolls on the walls, to possibly even the arrangement of the tatami mats. In a place so open and connected to its lush surroundings, I can appreciate the importance of that.
To catch the bus back, to the next bus back to town, 'twas a quick sayonara to the monstrous koi (yes, they were quite forward and we did see some people feeding and touching them)...then between busses, a brief walk in the sunset. Requisite cheesy photos and conclusion:
I still feel like I could get out into the country more often; there are spans when I can go several weeks without walking on grass. It is amazing, such ruralness available only an hour's train ride from the neon center of Tokyo, and I have a love for both extremes.
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