Take time out for a cuppa
Tea gathering offers break from the buzz of the daily grind,
What did you do?
I participated in a tea gathering at Camellia Teas of Ottawa.
A tea gathering? What’s that?
It’s a 90-minute pause in the hectic whirl of life.
Huh?
From the moment you walk into the Mooney’s Bay-area home where Camellia Teas founder Rebecca Cragg hosts tea gatherings and other events, you feel as though you’ve entered a serene alternate universe. I arrived frazzled, after the usual scramble to find my camera and notebook and a hurried drive. Cragg greeted me in a creamcoloured kimono with a wide embroidered obi, took my coat and ushered me through filmy curtains into her living room. It was like entering a Japanese oasis.
How so?
From an unseen stereo, flute music played softly. I could hear chimes in the distance. Cragg’s Japanese-style paintings brightened the walls. The furnishings were spare with a few eye-catching accents, such as an ikebana arrangement and a porcelain figurine. A raised hearth, used mainly in the winter, drew my eye to one corner of the room.
The calming effect is one of the reasons Cragg wanted to run tea gatherings in her home, rather than a temporarily rented public space. “It’s the way things are done in Japan,” she said. “In the home, you can have all your treasures.”
How did Cragg learn about Japanese culture?
With a master’s in cultural anthropology in hand, she headed to Japan 15 years ago to teach English. When she found her Canadian teaching methods weren’t working, she decided to take instruction in several Japanese arts — including tea, ikebana, painting and kimono — as a way to improve her teaching. She became fascinated by the culture and stayed in Japan for seven years. She returns regularly to learn from her teachers and still considers herself a beginner, even though she has served tea to more than 20,000 guests.
How did the afternoon begin?
Two experienced students, Trudy and Nicole, arrived, and we sat on chairs around a low wooden table covered with a red-and-gold silk runner. We peppered Cragg with questions as she poured a welcoming cup of gyokuro tea — a delicacy in Japan — into flowered white teacups.
What did the tea taste like?
It was a green tea far removed from my usual Earl Grey. To my amateur palate, it tasted strongly vegetal, like asparagus.
So was that the tea gathering?
No, that was just the welcome. As we sipped our gyokuro, Cragg described what would happen next, in a tea room on the lower floor of the split-level house.
First, we would remove our shoes. Then we would kneel to wash our hands and rinse our mouths with water from a bowl and dipper outside the tea room. Next, we would enter the tea room in a specific order: the most experienced guest first, then the newbie (me), then the third guest.
There’s even a custom about which foot to step into the room with. Cragg explained that the traditions are like the rules of the road: they keep people from colliding in small spaces. Once we were in the room, we would kneel on cushions (chairs were available if needed).
Did you need specialized equipment?
Just a little. Cragg gave each of us a tea purse — a wallet-like silk bag containing a small sheaf of thick white paper and a little knifelike implement. In the tea room, she would pass around a bowl of sweets made from bean paste and sugar. We would use chopsticks to take one sweet and place it on the paper before passing the bowl to the next person. Then we would use the utensil to cut the sweet apart and bring it to our mouths.
It sounds like a lot to remember. Were you nervous about screwing up?
Absolutely, but I shouldn’t have been. Cragg and my fellow students were very kind, as you’ll see.
So what was the tea room like?
A converted bedroom, it was largely empty save for tatami mats on the floor, a lantern, the tea preparation equipment and a wall of shelves displaying some of Cragg’s collection of hundreds of tea bowls, including
one dating back to the 15th century.
What happened in the tea room?
First, we passed the bowl of sweets from guest to guest. Because they were soft, I had trouble fishing one out with the chopsticks. I was determined to do things properly, but my sweet was increasingly looking like it had gone several rounds with Muhammad Ali. Taking pity on me, one of the other guests leaned over and whispered: “You can pick it up with your fingers. It’s OK.”
But what about the tea?
Kneeling in front of the lantern and cast-iron kettle, Cragg scooped matcha green tea powder into a bowl, adding hot water with a ladle and swirling it with a bamboo whisk. It was a mesmerizing process, but the stylized movements were not the point of the exercise; the interaction among the guests was.
“Tea is first and foremost about the relationships between people,” Cragg had explained. Each guest sipped from the communal bowl, wiped the rim with a cloth and passed the bowl to the next person. The tea was thick and pungent — not totally unpleasant, but an acquired taste.
How did the gathering end?
We bowed to Cragg, collected our belongings and said our goodbyes. I felt both peaceful and pleasantly muted. Cragg urged me to visit the Zen garden at the back of the house before leaving, and I’m glad I did. Even on a blustery fall day, its lanterns, raked gravel and delicate shrubs made it a tranquil place.
Tranquil — that’s just what I need. How can I join a gathering?
Contact Cragg through her website, camelliateas.net. She hosts tea gatherings on Monday evenings and Thursday afternoons, at a cost of $25 per person. Along with a wide range of tea-oriented events, she also offers instruction in ikebana, bamboo painting and other Japanese arts.
Where else can I learn about tea?
The Ottawa Tea Festival takes place Nov. 23 at the Ottawa Convention Centre ( ottawateafestival.com).