What is nagori? The tea ceremony's October season

October is the last month of the summer half of the tea year. In a few weeks the tea rooms will close the portable brazier and open the hearth in the floor, and the new tea will be unsealed. Before that comes a month with its own name and its own mood: nagori, "what remains."

The short answer: nagori (名残) is the tea season of October, the last weeks before the hearth opens in early November. Last year's tea is running low, and the gatherings of the month are about the end of things: the last of the tea, the last of the brazier season, the last flowers of the year. Tools with a worn, quiet look are chosen, and the care given to cleaning and to the tools is, if anything, greater than usual.

I study tea in Tokyo, in the Urasenke school. This is the season we are in as I write, and here is what it means.

Why October is "what remains"

Tea picked in spring used to be kept whole in sealed jars and opened in November. By October, the tea opened the previous November was nearly gone. So the month carries a feeling of running out, of using the last of something well. It is also deep autumn, when the garden is fading, and tea gatherings in October take that mood rather than resist it.

What you see in an October tea room

• Tools that show their age. The brazier season is ending, and the utensils chosen for it often look worn and quiet rather than fresh.
• The last flowers. Small, sparse flowers past their best, or the last few from a garden that was full in summer.
• More care, not less. The point of nagori is to value what is ending. So the cleaning and the care of the tools are done even more carefully than usual.

How it leads into the new year

Then, around Rittō in early November, everything turns at once: the hearth is opened, the new tea is unsealed, and tea people treat the season as a New Year. I explain that turn in what is robiraki.

Nagori at home

The idea is easy to bring home. October is a good month to use up the last of an open tin rather than buying ahead, to clean the bowl and the scoop properly, and to look honestly at the whisk: if its tines have thinned and the foam has turned coarse, it has done its season. Matcha is at its best in the first weeks after a tin is opened, so the end of a tin is worth finishing well rather than keeping. More on that in how to store matcha.

Questions I get asked

What does nagori mean in the tea ceremony?

"What remains." It is the October season, when last year's tea is running low and gatherings take the mood of things coming to an end.

When is the nagori season?

October, the last month before the hearth is opened around Rittō in early November.

What comes after nagori?

Robiraki, the opening of the hearth, and kuchikiri, the first of the new tea, which together make November the New Year of tea.

Where this fits

If your whisk has done its season, a new 100-prong bamboo whisk made in Takayama, Nara is the one tool to replace. How often to replace a chasen explains how to tell.

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