Photo: Senshin-an
lifestyle

Japanese tea house for inside your home? Tokyo company wants to offer micro 'chashitsu' overseas

10 Comments
By Casey Baseel, SoraNews24

In a perfect world, we’d all have our own secluded teahouse, a cabin in the middle of a bamboo grove where we could sip a bowl of freshly brewed matcha while freeing ourselves from the stress of modern society and quietly contemplating the true essence of existence, either alone or with a close, trusted companion.

Of course, most of us don’t own a parcel of land in a forest, and you may even live in a country with no bamboo groves to be found. That doesn’t mean you have to be denied your teahouse sanctuary, though, thanks to Tokyo tea ceremony school and cultural event venue Senshin-an.

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Senshin-an is located in Asakusa, Tokyo’s most traditionally cultural neighborhood. People interested in Japanese tea customs aren’t limited to those who live in the district, though, or even Japan, so to help facilitate a participative interest in tea culture Senshin-an has come up with the Chashitsu ZerO, a compact teahouse that you assemble inside your home.

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As with full-size Japanese tea cottages, entry is through a rectangular door called a nijiriguchi. The unorthodox portal is meant to mentally remind you that you’re entering a space separate from your daily life, where tranquility and balance are the foremost priorities.

▼ The Chashitsu ZerO with its roof and front wall removed in order to show the interior.

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Once inside, you’ll sit or kneel on a pair of tatami reed flooring panels. While the tea kettle, cups, and other brewing equipment shown in the above photo isn’t part of the package, each Chashitsu ZerO does include a kakejiku hanging scroll made of washi paper from craftsmen in Japan’s Echizen (Fukui) region. The calligraphy is handwritten by Soken Danjo, abbot of Saikozenji, a Buddhist temple founded in Hiroshima over 500 years ago.

▼ The characters read "Honrai mu ichimotsu," a Zen proverb that translates as “All things come from nothingness” and is interpreted as a reminder to free yourself from unnecessary burdens and attachments.

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The exterior dimensions of the Chashitsu ZerO are 160 centimeters in length by 120 in width and 150 in height. Since the walls and ceiling are made of sturdy cardboard paneling, the total weight is just 38 kilograms so with someone to help, it shouldn’t be too hard to move around even when fully assembled.

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The Chashitsu ZerO is currently available for purchase in Japan here for 180,000 yen, which includes shipping. Senshin-an is also interested in offering its teahouse-for-inside-the-house to overseas buyers as well, and to gauge whether or not there’s sufficient demand they’ve started a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter here.

Source: Senshin-an via IT Media

Insert images: YouTube/茶室ZerO, Senshin-an

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© SoraNews24

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

10 Comments
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The idea is not so bad, but it’s of course rather too small (160cm in length) for gaigokujin customers, who as Japanophile surely also want to (mis-)use it for other things like a nap on tatami, as usual washitsu, for doing some calligraphy, performing to swing a katakana, play shogi with a friend and all such. And under marketing aspects I would recommend also to include all needed basic accessories for the chadou tea ceremony and of course some packages of matcha from different regions in Japan, for example. Priced at quite high 180,000yen I think it also should be at least kind of nearly complete and immediately usable for the intended main purpose or maybe more.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

I prefer a cup of PG Tips, sometimes with a digestive biscuit. This has zero appeal to me.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

And who is going to buy or use it?

My business is extremely connected to Sado (tea ceremony) pre pandemic 80% of my business was dealing with practitioners of traditional tea ceremony.

Today if it is 10% of pre pandemic business I am lucky.

Nearly all the elders teaching sado have quit because of social distancing.

I don't see an uptick in the activity any time soon.

And yes I would know as would my friends and business acquaintances.

Seeing we supply the needed goods to preform the tea ceremony and sales of new, used/recycled/antique equipment is flat no change in the past 2 years.

I see this as just a "hail Mary" move by this business to try an revive things by turning to some crazy idea of "doing it at home".

I have 20 fully refurbished antique and vintage tea ceremony sets and not one has sold since mid June 2020 usually I would have sold all within 6 months and moved on to buying and repairing/refurbishing more damaged sets but nothing moving so no point in doing anything with that regard.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

I agree with the guy who runs the antique junk store. Hardly anyone wants this boring old stuff these days, who cares if they are refurbished or even mint condition, the time has passed for this stuff except for a very small amount of elderly and curious foreigners who want this kind of stuff to I press their friends. Guess, there’s also the odd Japanophile too who gets into this lark, not my cup of tea and not the cup of tea of most too it seems.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

I think its time to move on to modern day rather than trying to relive the old samurai days. That includes stop using fax machines and floppy disks.

-3 ( +2 / -5 )

I'm happier with living room table on top of a heater/cooler floor while enjoying a nice brew. No artwork necessary.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

 "Honrai mu ichimotsu,"

So, then. Why would you need a micro-chishitsu in your home in the first place?

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

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