Mossy granite monoliths mark the approach to Myochoan, an authentic Japanese teahouse situated in Penryn, about 25 miles east of Sacramento.

Passing through a covered gate and down a path of stone, the cares of the bustling work-a-day world melt away as you enter the Japanese rock and pine garden flanking the teahouse. A small bamboo fence, a waiting bench, and a stone lantern set an ambience of harmony and tranquility that prepare you to partake of one of life's most simple, but elegant elixirs.

A final purification by water from a wooden ladle at the tsukubai basin leads you in the timeless but ordered space of the teahouse.

Built in fidelity to the teahouses of Kyoto down to the last exacting details, Myochoan consists of an eight tatami mat room, a ryurei room, a mizuya preparation room, and a four and a half daime tatami mat room which tea instructor Soju Ward considers the soul of the teahouse.  Here, steeped in simplicity, host and guests participate in an ancient ceremony of sharing sweets and tea in a setting of interweaving harmonies that celebrate beauty, peace, and purity through a respect of both nature and culture. 

Myochoan-kai, affiliated with the Urasenke Foundation, is the tea group that strives to come to a fuller appreciation for the subtle richness of life through the discipline of tea.  Four hundred years ago, Sen Rikyu broke through to the very heart of wabi tea and established a tradition to honor and preserve that experience which has been handed down fifteen generations to the current grand master, Sen Soshitsu.

When completed in September 1992, the Grand Master, Hounsai, named the Myochoan teahouse in honor of Soju Ward’s father and mother by combining the special Buddhist names her parents were given after their deaths.

Here is your invitation to join us in the “peace in a bowl of tea”.  As a member of Myochoan-kai, you are offered a unique opportunity to savor the spirit of Japanese culture, and to cultivate the mind of tea.

The benefits of membership include:

• Invitations to tea gatherings
  
• Lectures on the related arts
  
• Classes on kaiseki cooking
  
• Subscription to the Urasenke Newsletter
  
• Demonstrations
  
• Myochoan newsletter
  
• Member discounts

Membership categories are:

For more information contact:

Soju (Sumie) Ward
PO Box 78
Penryn, CA 95663
916 663-3436
916 663-4874 FAX

myocho(at)earthlink.net

-----------------------

Our next Tea Gathering will be in March

Calendar:

More dates will be added as they are ascertained

Photos:

Here is information from the Hawaii Tea Group's 50th Anniversary which we attended in 2001

Newsletters:

We were saddened by the news of the passing of Roger Rapp, one of Ward Sensei's long time friends and Myochoan supporter. We had a special remembrance for him at the Rikyu-ki on March 27th.

Remembering Roger Rapp and Tea  March 24, 2010 
Rev. Dixie Jennings-Teats, First United Methodist Church, Carson City, Nevada

     We come together here, and we are all connected.  Connected through Sensei Ward and connected through Rikuyu to tea.     When Sensei asked me to say something as we remembered Roger, I wondered if it was inappropriate to speak from the Christian tradition as a United Methodist minister, my specific tradition.  Then, as I spoke with Roger’s wife this morning, I realized that all of Roger’s family was deeply involved in religion in many different ways, including a brother who is a United Methodist minister in Southern California!  We all gather here, connected.
     When Dr. Webb conducted a summer workshop for us a few years ago on Zen and Tea, he mentioned that Buddhism is the only religion that believes you can reach perfection in this lifetime.  I took him aside later and said, “No, John Wesley, where the Methodist movement began also focused on perfection, but in a different way.  Each United Methodist minister is asked as part of the ordination vows, “Do you expect to be perfected by love in this lifetime?”  The answer isn’t “I don’t know, or Maybe.”  The ritual answer that each new minister gives is “Yes”!
  We gather here today in love remembering Roger.  And together, we are being perfected by love.