Tea, Hot Water, and the Things We Take for Granted
As the weather warms, many of us naturally move outdoors. We sit in the sun with a coffee, read a book on a bench, or bring a laptop outside to work in the fresh air.
So I thought: why not bring my tea practice outdoors too?
Luckily, I have a fellow tea friend who lives nearby, and thanks to the beautiful weather lately, we decided to have a tea picnic.
We chose to practice Chabako (茶箱), which literally means “tea box.” It is a compact box designed to carry the essentials for tea so that one can prepare tea while traveling or outdoors. In other words, it was created for exactly this kind of occasion.
Usually, we practice indoors in our teacher’s tearoom, where everything is prepared with care: the utensils, the water, the atmosphere, the quiet rhythm of the room.
This time, however, we had to create all of that ourselves.
We gathered what we had: a tea box, a tray, a tetsubin iron kettle, a rollable tatami picnic mat, and a few small accessories. We filled a thermos with pre-boiled water and carried everything to a nearby outdoor spot.
Then we prepared the space as if it were a tearoom.
We picked a few flowers growing nearby and created a small portable tokonoma—the decorative alcove traditionally found in Japanese tea rooms. We arranged the flowers and added a tanzaku, a slender calligraphy card personally handwritten by the mother of the tea friend.
It looked perfect.
Then reality began.
As we started the first round of tea, the wind picked up and we quickly realized the tea lights under the kettle were useless.
Still, we carried on.
I took the first sip.
Yuck.
In tea, the guest usually takes the first sip, then says something complimentary as a gesture of gratitude to the host. But in this case, the water had cooled completely, and the tea was barely lukewarm. It was, quite honestly, a terrible bowl of tea.
So we improvised.
I had brought a portable gas stove as a backup—practical, though not very pretty—and we used it to reheat the water.
The second bowl came out too hot.
The third was better.
After several rounds of trial and error, we slowly found the right heat, the right timing, the right balance.
And that was when the real lesson began.
At home, or in the tearoom, hot water appears effortlessly. We turn on a kettle, place a pot on the stove, or use an electric dispenser that maintains the exact temperature we choose.
Modern life surrounds us with clever tools designed to remove friction. And truly, many of them are wonderful. They save time, reduce effort, and make daily life more manageable. As a mother, I deeply appreciate every single appliance lining my kitchen wall.
But because these conveniences work so well, we rarely notice everything they are doing for us. We begin to assume that hot water simply appears. That comfort simply exists. That smoothness is normal. Yet it is often through inconvenience that awareness returns.
When something stops working, when conditions are imperfect, when we meet resistance, we suddenly see what had been invisible all along. We become more resourceful. More attentive. More grateful.
Since that tea picnic, I’ve found myself thinking about how to heat water outdoors in a way that is both practical and aesthetically pleasing to the eyes in a tea setting. I’ve browsed camping shops and looked at all kinds of modern equipment.
Useful? Yes.
Beautiful? Not quite.
And then I realized the answer had existed long before I started searching.
Use a furo (風炉), the traditional portable brazier used in tea practice, heated with charcoal.
Of course!
Tea practitioners solved this problem centuries ago. For hundreds of years, they prepared water beautifully, efficiently, and without electricity or gas.
What I thought required a new gadget actually required an older wisdom.
I can only speak for myself, but when I think I need something, my instinct is often to search online, compare products, read reviews, and look for the newest solution.
But tea keeps teaching me a different lesson:
Sometimes what we need is not something new.
Sometimes we need to think more carefully.
Sometimes the answer is already here, quietly waiting in the old ways.
Convenience is valuable. Ease has its place.
But occasionally, it is worth doing things the slower way too.
To feel the process again.
To notice what usually goes unseen.
To step out of autopilot.
Trying to find a smarter, newer method, I ended up returning to one of the oldest ways to boil water.
And somehow, I appreciate it now more than ever.
I’m beginning to understand why my teacher places so much emphasis on sumitemae (炭点前)—the ritual for preparing charcoal before the tea even begins.
But that is a reflection for another post.
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