On Sunday, 2/24/2019, the Osaka Tea Party (https://ajtla.teamedia.jp/dai-osaka/) was held at the Aichi-Kaikan in Osaka. This event is a very deep space where tea lovers gather from all over Japan. I, Iwamoto, attended as a Samurai Tea Master. The photo above is a posed shot before the show started.
We used to do shows in 30-minute slots at the most, but this time we got an hour.
I used to think that a show would be more interesting if it was lively and performance-oriented, so I used various kinds of teas to keep the tempo up and made sure I didn’t get bored.
But the more I do it, the better I get at showing it. I began to wonder. What on earth do you want to do? I wondered. What will be left in the audience’s impression after the show? I wondered.
I was wondering if this is really conveying what you want to convey.
Up until now, I have been trying to put together a show that incorporates as many of my skills as possible in an attempt to turn a general, unspecified, non-tea-interested audience. Juggling, magic, and so on. That’s all well and good, but the more I do it, the more the content becomes blurred.
What I want to tell you is about tea.
Therefore, we have made a drastic change in the content.
The theme was “A Deeper World of Gyokuro.
One hour using only tea that I rubbed myself (by machine).
First, they were asked to drink the stems (karigane) of the gyokuro produced at Shuwaen, and then to drink the leaves from the same field.
In doing so, we asked them to find differences in taste and preference by leaching under five different conditions.
The theory is that gyokuro should be brewed at a low temperature, but is that really the best solution?
You don’t know until you try everything. So let’s give it a try anyway.
Yes, this is what I want to tell you.
Then, a limited number of participants will be able to compare the taste of different varieties of tea from the same field and variety in different locations, as well as different varieties of tea from different fields of the same variety.
The hour flew by.
It was quite drastic, and I wondered how it would turn out. I was worried.
But when I asked them later, they were surprisingly well received.
I think it was an hour well spent conveying what the Samurai Tea Master thinks is the appeal of tea, what exactly is so interesting about tea, and how we should be moving toward it.
Yes, this is what I wanted to do.
There are still many things to be improved, but the day was a step forward toward a show that will convey the charm of tea as Samurai Tea People think it should be.
Thank you to everyone involved, to the staff, and to
Thank you very much for watching!