Round waiting room

This tea-house has a wonderful garden around it. All the seasonal trees and flowers needed to keep the garden alive throughout the year can be seen. The garden also has two very cute Machi-ai / waiting huts near the tea-house. One is directly next to the Chashitsu / tea house and is made from another big barrel of the same kind as the tea house. The second waiting room is a little further away in the garden and has a beautiful stepping stone path leading up to it. Everything seemed so perfect for a tea ceremony that I surely will go back there and try to arrange something.

Round Tea Ceremony House

After having lunch with some friends, I found a beautiful tea-house behind the restaurant. It’s probably the smallest I’ve ever seen. It is made from a huge barrel which used to have Miso-paste in it. The owner told me that his acquaintance was about to throw some of these barrels away since they had become too old to continue the storage of Miso-paste in it. One barrel was made into a tea-house and another into a Machi-ai / waiting hut. The owner knew a carpenter who had some experience building and designing Chashitsu / tea house and they worked on the hut together.

Inside there is only one Tatami mat, so I guess the room would only fit two or three people which makes it a very intimate. The window, the tana / shelves and the kakejiku / hanging scroll were all of miniature size to keep a balance in the Chashitsu (tea house).