A special invitation 
Aunt waiting for us for half past four p.m. and then gave one last look over the horizon of Sandan-Heki and we drive back to Shirahama. The day is hot and very humid.
The small house is opposite the beach and is on one floor. We opened the door a smiling lady, tall and thin, with wavy black hair and collected, bows a thousand times and invites us to enter. We take off our shoes and cross two rooms with sliding doors in traditional Japanese style, without furniture, bathroom and kitchen are rather Western, a marriage of convenience and tradition!
The aunt is so excited, do not speak English and thinks Mikako to act as interpreter. He feels honored to make tea for us and explains in detail what we do. Guests must enter the tea house through a small garden of bamboo attached to the rest of the building by a corridor. One at a time using the flip-flops arranged for us through the garden, washing your face and hands in the small fountain and enter the house by a low door that forces the visitor to bow out of respect. The house is actually a stanzettina a few square meters with a circular window that filters the light and the ceiling low. On the wall kakemono (a painting hanging panel is changed depending on the season) and the next 'Ikebana (flower arrangement), the center of the brazier to heat the water and all the tools for the ceremony.
We have a circle, kneeling and aunt begins. Suddenly the atmosphere becomes ritual, silence falls and everything looks the woman kneeling at the center, looking very serious and focused, once heated the water dilutes the pouring in another bowl with broad gestures and again another so that is not too hot. Then a small lacquered box pulls out a cloth bag, opens it and a small wooden ladle takes the green tea powder just for this ritual. Again with the sweeping gesture puts it into a bowl, poured the water and with a kind of bamboo whisk the mixture for a long time and then pour into a bowl bigger. The result is a very dense liquid green tea and not all that we expected! Each of us must turn to drink a small sip from the bowl, pulendone the edge with a small handkerchief and making then rotate between the left hand and right thumb three times counterclockwise. The flavor is typical of green tea but the thick consistency gives him a very bitter taste. We are then offered a box lacquered some great cakes of colored gelatin contrast to much sugar.
The tea ceremony has its origins in China and was made by Buddhist monks for religious purposes (so I think I understand) is a very complex thing that only the geishas and women of a certain age now know how to perform duty. Usually in a Japanese house there is always the tea house, and many women do to themselves every day and this fascinating ritual.
Unfortunately my camera had dead batteries that afternoon and the only visual memory remains the circular window on the garden of bamboo, but the indelible feeling bitter tea ...
Despite the language barrier we conversing with the lady who invites us to come back for dinner another night. Her husband, a retired professor, has the hobby of fishing and has a small motor boat with which the evening out at sea with friends. We are invited for a spot of night fishing for the next night ... how refuse?
greet politely and go back to the car already relishing the idea of \u200b\u200btasting the freshest sashimi you can imagine ...
