Tea house

A tea house, also written as teahouse, or tearoom, was a business dedicated to making and selling tea in Kara-Tur. In Wa, there were whole tea gardens, or rojo.

Lands
Tea houses were common in Shou Lung, such as in Pinchow; in Kozakura, where wealthy temples maintained their own tea houses; and in Wa, with fine ones known in Iiso and tea gardens in Rukimbaru and Aru.

Styles
In the city of Iiso in Wa, the teahouses had a common and peculiar design related to the tea ceremony. First, patrons must crawl through a low doorway, called a nijiriguchi; this was to remind them of their servility. Inside, the interior had both angled ceilings and sloping floors to give patrons a feeling of being confined. The rooms were divided by byobu screens. In the main room, the tea was boiled in a ro placed in the corner, while the room called the chashitsu was for guests and an adjacent room called the katte was where the tea ceremony was prepared.

In the city of Rukimbaru, tea gardens were large compounds set in specially reserved areas, which were quiet, isolated, and far from the hectic commercial districts. A normal tea garden was entered via a garden gate, called a rojiguchi, inside which was a rack for samurai to leave their weapons, as these were undesired in a place of peace. Within the compound, one corner was given over to the main garden, where cherry trees, plum trees, and rose bushes grew. There was also a meditation bench, a low stone basin called a tsukubsai, and a decorative area of polished pebbles and ocean sand called a sunazetchin. There were two tearooms: a small one for parties of up to four, and a large one in which parties of up to ten could sit comfortably.

Smaller tea rooms were found within the houses of nobles, but these were reserved for personal use by family and close friends.

Known Tea Houses

 * Main: Category:Tea houses