Asakusa tea ceremony: whisk your first bowl of matcha

The tea ceremony is usually misread as a solemn ritual you sit still through. It's closer to learning a craft: every movement has an order because that order saves motion, and the beauty is a by-product rather than the point. Ninety minutes in a tatami room directly behind the Asakusa crowds, six minutes' walk from the Kaminarimon gate.

For the first part you simply watch the host prepare one bowl by the book, with each step explained: why the cloth is folded along those creases, why the ladle returns to exactly the same spot, why the bowl is turned twice before drinking. Then you take the whisk. Almost everyone's first bowl comes out thin — not enough foam, and the bitterness comes forward. The second is noticeably different, and you can taste that difference without anyone grading you.

The second bowl comes with a seasonal sweet, eaten BEFORE the tea rather than after — the sweetness is there to balance the bitterness, and that is its only job. At the end, the host points you to where to buy decent matcha to take home, and how to tell drinking grade from baking grade. Tabi socks are lent to you, and you don't need to be able to kneel.