How long does a Japanese tea ceremony last?

Ask how long a Japanese tea ceremony lasts and you will get two answers that sound as if they cannot both be true: forty-five minutes, and four hours. Both are right. They are describing different events that English calls by the same name.

A full formal tea gathering, a chaji, lasts about four hours and includes a meal, two rounds of charcoal, thick tea and thin tea. A large public tea gathering, a chakai, serves sweets and thin tea in about twenty minutes per seating, though the day around it runs longer. A tea ceremony experience for visitors in Kyoto or Tokyo takes forty-five to ninety minutes, and the tea-making itself is often about ten of them.

I study tea in Japan and go to lessons every week. What follows is the difference between those three, and where the time actually goes.

The three things called a tea ceremony

What each of these is called, and why English uses one word for all of them, is its own subject: what the Japanese tea ceremony is called.

Why a chaji takes four hours

Because it is a whole afternoon planned around one bowl of thick tea. The standard form is the midday gathering, and in the warm months it runs in this order:

1. The first half (shoza). Guests enter, the host serves a kaiseki meal, lays the charcoal in front of the guests, and brings out the main sweet.
2. The break (nakadachi). Guests step out into the garden while the host changes the room.
3. The second half (goza). Thick tea, koicha, made in one bowl and passed from guest to guest. Then the charcoal is laid again, and the gathering closes with thin tea, one bowl each.

The thick tea is the center of it. Everything before is there to bring the guests to that bowl in the right state, and everything after is there to let them down gently. If you want to know how the two teas differ in the bowl, usucha and koicha covers it.

There are seasonal variations. A summer gathering can start at about six in the morning to avoid the heat, and a winter one in the evening by candlelight or even before dawn (when each kind of gathering is held). Neither is short.

What the guest does, step by step, is in what happens at a tea ceremony.

Why the tea-making takes minutes

At a visitor experience the demonstration is brief because making thin tea is brief. Camellia in Kyoto runs a forty-five-minute session in which the host's own preparation lasts about ten. At Maikoya, where guests are dressed in kimono first, the whole visit is about ninety minutes and the tea begins roughly half an hour in.

What visitors do not see is how much of a procedure happens after the tea has been drunk. In my lessons, that is where most of my mistakes are. The bowl is rinsed and wiped. The scoop is cleaned with the silk cloth. The utensils go back to their places in a fixed order. If the guests ask, the caddy and the scoop are handed out to be looked at, and the principal guest asks who carved the scoop and what name it carries. Putting things away is part of the tea, not the tidying after it.

Whether a short experience is worth booking is a fair question, and I think the answer is yes, judged as an introduction: is a tea ceremony in Japan worth it.

Do you have to kneel the whole time?

At a formal chaji, yes, mostly. Guests sit in seiza, on their heels, for long stretches. This is the part people worry about most, and for good reason.

There is a seated alternative, and it is not a concession to tourists. The Urasenke school developed a way of making tea at a table, called ryūrei, for the Kyoto Exposition of 1872, when foreign visitors were expected. Many visitor experiences now use chairs, and many ōyose gatherings set aside a table seating. If kneeling is a problem, ask when you book. Nobody will think less of you.

Questions I get asked

How long does a Japanese tea ceremony last?

A full formal chaji lasts about four hours. A seating at a public chakai lasts about twenty minutes. A visitor experience takes forty-five to ninety minutes.

What is the difference between a chakai and a chaji?

A chakai is a gathering for tea, often large, with sweets and thin tea. A chaji is the full formal event for a few invited guests, with a meal, charcoal, thick tea and thin tea, and it takes about four hours.

How long is a tea ceremony experience in Kyoto?

Usually forty-five minutes to an hour and a half. Sessions that include kimono dressing run longer. The host's demonstration is often about ten minutes; the rest is explanation and making your own bowl.

Do you have to kneel during a tea ceremony?

At a formal gathering, mostly yes. Many visitor experiences and public gatherings offer chairs, a style called ryūrei that the Urasenke school developed in 1872. Ask when you book.

Why is thick tea the main part of a chaji?

Because the whole gathering is arranged around it. The meal and the first charcoal come before, the second charcoal and thin tea after. Thick tea is shared from one bowl, which is the moment the gathering is for.

Where this fits

If you want the twenty-minute version at home, a bowl, a whisk and a scoop are all it takes. The bowl I stock is a Mino-yaki chawan, and the starter set has the three together. If the four-hour version is what draws you, the way in is lessons, not tickets: how to learn the Japanese tea ceremony. For a first bowl on your own, start with matcha for beginners.

Written by Mio.K, who chooses everything in this shop by hand in Japan.