Tea ceremony glossary

A low, flattened natsume used to build cool-feeling arrangements for summer thin tea.

Tea spaces larger than four and a half mats, suited to open gatherings and shoin-style formality.

Unglazed high-fired bowls from Bizen whose entire appearance comes from clay and fire alone.

Green glassy natural glaze on Shigaraki and Iga wares, formed by ash melting during firing.

A square of silk used to purify utensils; its colour follows the user's role and, in some schools, their gender.

Unfolding, folding, and using the silk cloth to purify the tea container and scoop; the gesture where schools differ most visibly.

A small stand for the kettle lid and the ladle; the utensil in which a host's playfulness shows most freely.

A school carrying Kawakami Fuhaku's style directly, often treated as one line within Edo Senke.

A natsume whose scattered gold and silver decoration suggests driving snow; a winter container.

Arrangements from the hearth-opening to the deep cold — cylindrical bowls, large kettles, warm colours — built to convey warmth.

Rikyu's senior student (1544–1615) who led warrior-class tea and prized deliberate distortion.

A freestanding brazier set on the mats from May to October, arranged to keep the fire away from guests and suggest coolness.

Calligraphy by Zen monks, the most highly ranked of hanging scrolls, which fixes the theme of a sitting.

The simplest procedure, with a minimal set of utensils on a tray; usually the first thing a beginner learns.

The sense of distance and timing in bows and in passing objects; the practical feel of a shared rhythm.

A covered bench in the garden where guests wait for the host's signal to enter.

Shade-grown green tea leaf stone-ground to a fine powder, whisked into water rather than steeped.

A Sen-lineage school centred on Nagoya, carrying a merchant-class tradition of tea.

The Matsue daimyo (1751–1818) whose collecting and cataloguing organised the ranking of tea utensils.

The inside of a bowl, especially the centre of the base, where the tea pools and the glaze shows.