Chanoyu at the Japanese National Day, organized by the Japanese Embassy in Romania

 On the 8^thday of December 2016 the Japanese Embassy in Romania held a reception to honour the birthday of the Emperor Akihito.

On this very special occasion, the “Romania - Luminis” Tankokai of Chado Urasenke School of Kyoto, together with all the groups practising Chanoyu in Bucharest, had the honour to be invited and to so offer a cup of tea to the Japanese Embassy's honoured guests.

H.E. Mr. Ambassador Kisaburo Ishii and his wife, Mrs. Sachiko Ishii opened the entertaining part of the evening by inviting their guests to taste matcha, participating themselves at the tea ceremony as guests (Okyaku).

Together with Her Excellency Mrs Ambasador Sachiko Ishii sits the Roumanian Stat Secretary Mr. Sorin Costreie from the National Education and Scientific Research Ministery.

By the benevolence of their Excellencies Hounsai Daisosho sama and his son, Zabosai Oiemoto who provided us with tea and sweets, our guests could taste the thin tea called Shohaku from Koyamaen, and traditional Japanese dry sweets, of two types.

The initial temae, performed by Gabriel Soga Caciula sensei as teishu and Andreea Stanca as hanto, had been fallowed by other temaes, performed by Andreea Stanca and Cristina Comanac, together with the help of all the students of the Luminis Association who played the roll of hanto, succeeding in serving every person who wanted to participate and taste the green tea, matcha.

 
The temae performed was Usucha with Chishin Dana, a special table used for making tea.




The scroll on tokonoma was "Kotobuki" ("Celebration").

We gratefully thank the Japanese Embassy for inviting us on this event, it has been a great opportunity for us.

We deeply thank Daisoho sama and Oiemoto sama for their help in providing us both tea and sweets for the both groups that participated.

We also thank each and every student for their effort and hard practice.

From Right to Left:
As. Chado Urasenke Tankokai Romania "Luminis":
Standing: Alina Cherata, Mihaela Matei, Mihaela Oancea, Laura Caraman, Cristiana Buzila, Mihaela Pana, Gabriel Caciula, Maria Chiselita, Lucian Tonca, Oana Petriman
On chair: Andreea Stanca, Cristina Comanac
Missing from this picture: Andreea Stancu and Iulia Ciocoiu

In the middle, their Excellencies Mr. and Mrs. Ambassador Kisaburo and Sachiko Ishii

On the left: Representants of the As. Chado Urasenke Tankokai Romania

Demonstration and details

The photographer we had for this important event left me with no choice but to make an other article with very different type of photos. It is NOT usual to show photos with people when the main attraction point is TEA, but I will make a special allowance now, for he (the photograph) spent a lot of time and effort to capture some very nice and spontaneous photos either with facial expressions or with the use of utensils.
The photos will also show images from our long and hard preparation for the event. So here is the "backstage". Please enjoy the funny, the cute, the natural, the human reactions, the details:

About humans:

About preparations:

About dogu and movements:

The event finished with the 3 teishu-s making and offering tea to all the students that helped, thanking them for their efforts and good practice. Again, nice photos had been made: