La Quinta Cove

Palm Desert is the home of Dr. Glenn Webb, a noted Japanese scholar and master of the Japanese tea ceremony.  La Quinta Arts Foundation and the LQ Museum sponsored this unusual event.  Along with his wife and several other trained “students of tea”, Dr. Webb lectured and then demonstrated the final 20 minutes of the 4-hour complete ceremony.  The “chaji” is a strictly structured partaking of tea and food, during which there is little speaking and every gesture and object have significance.  Although not a religious ceremony, the chaji focuses the mind on peace, harmony, and oneness with others.  For true practitioners of the ceremony, every day of every year has slightly different gestures and significance, including a distinct kimono for every day of the year!  Here is a short clip of Mrs. Webb making tea (grinding, ladling hot water, and whisking the tea to a thick froth).   She serves the first tea to Keiko Nakada, whose responses are also structured according to the chaji tradition.  Here’s part one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vrzFhVtD-E