The Japanese Teahouse. Photo: Tony Sandin
The Japanese Teahouse
Zui-Ki-Tei
Welcome to Zui-Ki-Tei, The Cottage of Auspicious Light,
which can be seen and experienced in the park outside the
Museum of Ethnography in Stockholm. Zui-Ki-Tei is the nearest thing to authentic Japanese culture in Sweden.
This teahouse is the focal point around which the four seasons revolve: the fresh scents of spring, the green of summer, the rich palette of autumn colours and the winter’s snow, when the building lights up the dark with its mild, warm light.
Stroll along the Tea Path
Since the inauguration of the tea-house in May 1990, thousands of visitors have had the opportunity to familiarise themselves with Cha-do – the Tea Path – via the tea ceremonies that the museum has organised in conjunction with the Japanese Tea Society and its top-ranked tea-master Eiko Duke-Soei. At the same time, visitors have been able to enjoy Japanese tea-house
architecture of high class, the work of Professor Shosei Masao Nakamura from Kyoto.
As the tea ceremony room’s door slides quietly shut, what
emerges is quiet little universe entirely outside the stress of the everyday world, as though the sands of time were frozen in an atmosphere of quiet contemplation. A tea ceremony, Cha-No-Yu, can be carried out in any number of ways, each tailored to suit different seasons, guests and the various objects that are used in the course of the ceremony. The green powder tea, matcha, sets the stage around which host and guest follow a centuries-old pattern of graceful movement, choreographed to proceed at a given pace. The tea ceremony creates a period of concentrated focus on the inner self, generating a haven for aesthetic meditation on the exquisite objects of traditional
Japanese art and craft that are used in the ceremony.
The tea ceremony is based on four main concepts featuring
more than a passing flavour of ages-old Zen Buddhism: wa
– harmony, – respect or honesty, sei – cleanliness and djaku – tranquillity; the procedure and the aura it generated were devised in the 1500's by the grand tea-master Sen-no-Rikyu.
The Tea house garden
Surrounding Zui-Ki-Tei are the tea-house gardens, generally referred to as “Dew-Drop Gardens”. They have a special aesthetic appeal that is flavoured by the practical usage of the grounds themselves. There is a balanced and natural interaction between the trees, pools, stone-carved lamps and the pattern of the cobblestones set into the paths.
The tea-house garden’s special aura has been modelled on
grand tea-master Sen-No Rikyu’s ideal wabi – circling around the sheer beauty of utter simplicity.
