Kyoto: Candlelit Tea Ceremony in a 100-Year-Old Machiya

This is a tea ceremony held by candlelight. We turn the lights off for a simple reason: in the dark, you notice more — the sound of the water, the smell of the tea, the weight of the bowl in your hands.

The house is a machiya in Kyoto, about a hundred years old, kept for most of that time by a traditional obi maker. The rooms you'll sit in are the rooms they used.

You'll move through three of them. The first is bright, where your host meets you and explains what's going to happen. In the second, the light is lower, and you're served a welcome tea with a seasonal sweet. The third is the tearoom itself, lit only by candles, with the garden through the window. Seven guests at most.

Then the host makes tea, and you drink it.

The bowls are chosen for the day and the season. Some are over two hundred years old, some by potters working today. In summer we use glass. Your host will tell you what you're holding.

The matcha is grown in Uji and blended to the preference of the Urasenke grand master. Your host is trained in the Urasenke school.

Forty-five minutes. Nothing hurried, nothing performed, no etiquette to get wrong. At the end you'll take home a candle made here.