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Contents 1 Description 2 Setup 2.1 Dougu 2.2 Setup Notes 3 Temae 3.1 Opening 3.2 Tea Preparation 3.3 Closing 4 Guests 5 Notes

Description

Chabako is a form from 戦国時代 before Meiji and spiritually related to tabidansu. It's interesting in that it has been orally transmitted for some time in omote, but has no official written canon, meaning that there many be more variety in how it is practiced (when practiced, I gather it's gather marginal).

There seem to be four forms of chabako: spring, summer, fall, winter. Spring is considered to be the basic/core, with the others being variations of various additional complexity (with fall being ridiculous with a fold-out table, spoon socks, bowl cozies, and a mini-croquet hoop to act as a peg to keep the chasen from blowing/tumbling away). On questioning, it looks like spring can be done out of season and is generally acceptable (probably since it is the most kihon).

While a lot of the major movements seem to be omote, there is ura in there, with the kobukusa use being particularly notable.

This is an usucha, temae; it should be light and talky. While haiken can be done, it is a bit of an effort and may not be done (and not covered here).

Setup

Dougu

Here are a list of dougu which are specific to chabako temae, or differ from their normal form.

Furidashi(振り出し): little Chinese medicine container-like thing with stopper. Used to hold okashi (kompeito).

Chakin Tsutsu(茶巾筒): Usually a small ceramic cylinder which holds the chakin while it is in the chabako. Like a smaller futaoki with a closed bottom.

Chasen Tsutsu(茶筅筒): Usuall a laqured bamboo cylinder which holds the chasen while it is in the chabako.

Chasen(茶筅): The chasen used for chabako is smaller than a normal chasen.

Natsume(棗)/Chaki(茶器): The natsume used for chabako is smaller than a normal natsume because it needs to fit in the chawan. It is about half the hight of a konatsume and it is handled like a hiranatsume.

Chawan(茶碗): The chawan is smaller than a normal chawan because it needs to fit in the chabako.

Chashaku(茶杓): The chashaku is smaller than a normal chashaku because it needs to fit in the chabako.

Kobukusa(): Smaller fukusa which is used under the chawan to keep it off of the ground.

Chabako (茶箱):

Nakabon(?):

Tetsubin(鉄瓶): Iron tea kettle for hot water. Used instead of a kama.

Setup Notes

This is done with brasier and spouted kettle (lid ajar at opening). No okashi needs to come in as it is in chabako (but if you want extra, normal rules apply). The brasier seems to be about a span up from the line and a span and a fist from the right (we used a small tile).

See picture for chabako layout.

One thing to note is that the fukuza starts already "tatanda" (with wiping surface up and "triangles" down), not just folded (as it is at the end).

The chakin is stuffed into the tube dampened and folded like tsutsujawan, ears up.

The wa of the kobukusa is the top layer on the left side.

Temae

Opening

• Bow at door with chabako. Pick up with both hands (a la satsubako). Come in on center and sit/place box just a couple of gyou short of the brasier. Leave.

• Return with kensui, sit at center (again, very close--there's not much room here) and place kensui down at normal spot.

• With both hands, move the chabako directly to the left (above kensui).

• With both hands, remove the lid, in std way rotate 90 degrees (clockwise) and place to right, to the side of the brazier, with centerline at lower edge of tile.

• Remove inner frame with both hands and place in center in front, between knees and tile (it should be aligned with the chabako).

• Remove fukuza with left hand and fold for wiping into right (I assume thumbs up). Place left hand on upper-left corner of lid for stability (all fingers pushing on lid to hold it in place) and wipe three times (upper, middle, lower) across, all the way to the end.

• Place fukuza (opened) over hole in upper-right hand corner of frame.
  • Unless otherwise mentioned, that is home for the fukuza--it is never on the obi during the temae.

• Take the chashaku with the left hand (chashaku must go first since it is blocking everything else), probably close in to the fushi, and place on the extreme left of the lid with the right hand (holding the bottom end of the chashaku).
  • Restatement: With left hand grasping between fushi and end, pull chashaku out, take with right hand, and place on far left of lid, with a little space left on the left and above.

• Remove furidashi w/r, place in l and rotate shomen, and place out in chawan zone for pickup by guests w/r. Why not l like everything else? If you take it with the left, rotating and placeing it out becomes a mess.

• Bow. Apparently like you do in rakubon. Fix yourself.

• Take chawan out with right hand spanning across the top and being slightly supported by the left on the left, place chawan unit in center of remaining open area of frame.

• With right hand, remove chaki (likely mini-natsume), place onto left hand, then using right hand, place onto lid on the upper third center line and centered.

• With both hands and thumbs on top, take the kobukusa out of the chawan and place it between the chabako and frame. The bottom edge should be on the same line.

• Normally we would want to move the kensui up here, but we can't yet, so with both hands we move it up (bottom line with half of kobukusa).

• Now move kensui into position.

• Take the fukuza w/r and do fukuzasabaki. Take chaki and clean it, placing it in on in the upper and left third of the lid.

• As reasonable, fukuzasabaki and clean the chashaku, returning it to the same location.

• Pass the still held fukuza to the right hand, and close the lid of the brazier w/r. Return the fukuza to home w/r.

• Take chasen tube with left hand on fat part to center of body, tilted with tines slightly upward (30-45 degrees). Thumb will be up. Lightly hold thin part with right hand (thumb up), and use the pinky on the right hand to push out the chasen as much as possible. Remove (?), trying not to touch the part you make tea with with your hand, with the tilt declined to parallel in the motion (+), and move it into the chawan in one motion.
  •  ? The notes are unclear whether you remove the chasen from the tube with the left or right hand. My notes from the demo indicate right.
  • + This is an observation from hatching several demos, but may just be an artifact if the process. I mention this since I don't think I saw it for the chakin portion which it otherwise similar.

• Replace the chasen tube to its origin w/l. While our hand is over there, take the chakin tube, and remove the chakin with the same holding pattern as the chasen. While holding it over the right knee, return the tube to the chabako (marked as different from the chasen process).

• When done, place onto lid, on NS center line and on bottom third line, ears pointing to the left.
  • The notes make the point that the for the chasen is not on the lib in the beginning, the chakin is just there twisted. I'm not sure why this extra was added since the fact is established from the rest of the notes.

• At this point, while we are fiddling around, we want to start warming the bowl (like tsutsujawan). While our right hand is still out, take the fukuza (to above knee) w/r, take the kettle w/l and more to center of body. Place the fukuza on the lid "triangles down", hand pushing down on the fukuza, pour some water into the chawan over the tines of the chasen. Bring back to center; fukuza off and back into right hand on knee; kettle back to fire w/l; replace fukuza w/r.

• Again, like tsutsujawan, do a single swipe with the chasen and then leave it on the left.

• Take the chakin w/r and fix the folding to normal starting standard, replace onto lid.

• Finish chasen toshi (as tsutsujawan), when done place on lid at NE third centers.

• Warm bowl and dump water as normal.

Tea Preparation

• Wipe bowl with chakin and replace it to position on lid.

• Using the water getting mechanisms described above (for both mizu and oyu), do a standard usu. The chaki lid goes where the chaki goes.

• To put tea out, take kobukusa w/l, open (opens from left to right, with wa on the right) w/r, quarter rotation (grabbing in the SW corner to the SE corner) and place out w/r (holding in center, thumb on top). Place chawan in center of kobukusa.

• When the chawan comes back, chawan goes back to position; take kobukusa w/r, place into left, refold (right to left), and place on the right side of body below the knee line for further use.

Keep going until stopped. Acknowledgments like usu.

Closing

Things are a little confused in the notes (with a couple of points being impossible--for example,see 茶筅すすぎ). We've gone for overall consistency until they can be resolved.

• Return the kobukusa to the space between the chabako and the frame (r-l?).

• One more time hot water into chawan, chasen susugi, chasen back to lid. Roll water, pour out, wipe with chakin. With chakin in bowl, bowl down.

• Chasen into bowl as usual.

• Chaki back to earlier position on upper third and center.

• With hand still out, take fukuza and clean chashaku (do men, or anybody else, refold here?). Replace it.

• Slap out fukuza and replace it. Yes, you just did it with the kensui still close--it's different like that.

• Return fukuza to the frame.

• Move the kensui back.

• Move the chabako back to it's original level.

• Take the chasen from the chawan w/r and hold over knee. With left, take the chasen tube, and essentially do a reverse of the removal explained above (fishing with the pinky to pull the chasen down can be a little tricky). Replace the tube into the chabako. Try to avoid touching tines.

• Chakin shibori; once get to final stage (?), holding chakin w/r, take chakin tube w/l and using it as support, roll-up chakin tightly, using foldover as center of wind. Once rolled-up, put chakin in and replace tube. (?)
  • Need to specify this a little more.

• Take kobukusa w/both (?) and place with both hands (as before) over mouth of chawan. Take chaki and cram them in together.

• Take the chawan spanned across the top, and with left hand supprting, replace into chabako.

• Take the furidashi (r-l-r) and replace it into the chabako.

• Take the chashaku w/r, and over the knees, transfer it to left and put into chabako (as before).

• Take the fukuza and open the brazier (r). Move to left hand, and do fold down (see diagrams). Place on chashaku (diagonally) w/l.

• Replace the frame.

• Replace the lid, rotating counter clockwise back to original position.

• Move chabako back infront of brazier.

• Leave with kensui. Return.

• Leave and aisatsu with chabako.

Guests

Nothing too major from standard usucha.

The furidashi moves around like any other okashi container except it's handled like a not very nice chaire. [I should note that at one point one of the women made the comment that it was used inside the line, but this was contradicted by all of them continuously afterwards, so I'm assuming that was a miscommunication. -Ed] To get candy out, pick it up, move to left hand, stopper out w/r and put into corner on kaishi where ohashi usually go. Then, expel candy with two-handed rotation like when ura does koicha. I should note here that one lady had an orientation (mouth down on the left), but I saw it both ways by the ladies. Probably not a big deal either way.

The guest must deal with the tea bowl on the kobukusa. When the tea is first left out for the guest, the shoumen is facing the guess and the wa is on the right side. The bowl and kobukusa seem to move as a unit, so to take the bowl, pick both up with both hands and move it. The handling from then on is mostly like omote men's koicha, except that the bowl never really leaves the kobukusa except to rotate the shoumen for drinking (for example, for "osaki ni", it's like normal usucha with a kobukusa stuck to the bottom of the bowl). The only really weird thing is when returning the bowl/kobukusa--before final placement, the unit placed on the ground and rotated 180 deg. clockwise using the standard rotation rules, and then placed back to the final position (with about 2 gyou on each side).

Notes

The chashaku takes on some interesting "hishaku-like" properties (as we have none) and the furidashi is treated as the start and stop bell.

I'm not sure about the door. As it was originally practiced, there would have been no door, and when we practiced, we behaved as if there was no door (ignored). But if this was really done in a tea room, I assume that more care would need to be taken there.