Do you know that November is the beginning of the new year for tea ceremony. Tea farmers in Japan pick fresh tea leaves in May, then they dry but not ferment them. And then tea masters keep that in their own chatubo (tea container) for 5 months for it to mature to make delicious matcha green tea. It’s very important to wait for a long time so that the matcha tastes nice. Nowadays I can buy matcha powder anytime during the year, but a long time ago you couldn’t, and the great tea masters kept their own tea leaves in their own chatubo (tea container). We still have that custom, but many people buy matcha in cans. Chatubo is only left as a part of the tea ceremony; I think that few people actually use it.
November is the month when the season changes from fall to winter. We have a big tea ceremony event in November called Kairo, which means opening the furnace. We use Furo (brazier) from May to October in order to boil water and keep the rooms warm. And then we use Ro (sunken hearth) from November to April. We have two events in November that symbolize the new year of the tea ceremony!
