Since arriving in Japan, we've tried the special green tea called matcha in a few different places.  My favourites are at Hama Rikyu in Tokyo and a wonderful teahouse in Kyoto.  However, we hadn't had an opportunity to experience the full tea ceremony.  One of the places you can do this in Tokyo is at the Imperial Hotel near Ginza, where they have a tea room on the 4th floor.  So we made a booking for a Saturday morning and went along to savour the experience.

            Measuring out the tea, getting the water and whisking the tea.

    The moment we've been anticipating - drinking the tea!

I found that the ceremony had quite a meditative quality, where all attention was focussed on the preparation and drinking of the tea.  It is easy to see that the origins of the ceremony are found in Zen Buddhism.  Certainly after negotiating the Tokyo underground and the busy streets, it was like stepping into another, more serene world.

For more about the aesthetic of tea in Japan, there is a wonderful book called (not surprisingly) 'The Book of Tea' by Okakura Kakuzo.  This was actually written in English and for a western audience but has since been translated into many languages including Japanese.