{"id":4048,"date":"2020-02-26T23:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-26T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.dream.press\/?post_type=customer-spotlight&p=4048"},"modified":"2025-05-06T19:42:35","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T19:42:35","slug":"chado-urasenke-la","status":"publish","type":"customer-spotlight","link":"https:\/\/news.dream.press\/news\/customer-spotlight\/chado-urasenke-la\/","title":{"rendered":"Honoring Japanese Tea with the Urasenke Tankokai L.A. Association"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Los Angeles native Mark Umbriaco is always looking to experience a new piece of his city\u2019s patchwork of culture. So\n when he and a friend spotted a chance to sit in on a Japanese tea ceremony at an arts festival 15 years ago, he didn\u2019t\n hesitate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They packed into the venue and nabbed the only open seats \u2014 up in front, next to a kind-faced old man wearing a\n kimono. \u201cAnd everybody kind of freaked out,\u201d Umbriaco remembers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until that day, Umbriaco\u2019s only experience with the intricate rituals of serving matcha green tea had been a glimpse\n into the Japanese pavilion at SeaWorld San Diego as a kid in the 1970s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So he couldn\u2019t have known that he had just squeezed himself into a delicate art, steeped in a cultural tradition of\n honor and respect, that proscribed everything from how to hold the tea bowl to where to sit and what to say. Or that\n the kimono-clad man was tea master Hounsai, head of a leading school of tea and part of a powerful family in Japan.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe was a very welcoming, very distinguished old man,\u201d Umbriaco says. Excusing the etiquette breach, Hounsai embraced\n the newcomers. \u201cHe was just such a personable, kind, engaging, present person that I walked out of there thinking,\n \u2018What is this?\u2019 I was really impressed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wanting to learn more about the philosophy and practice of tea, Umbriaco sought out a sensei<\/a> at the Urasenke Tankokai L.A. Association<\/a>.\n Headquartered in Kyoto, Japan, this 400-plus-years-old organization<\/a> spans the world with branches from Europe to Peru,\n teaching the Way of Tea and sharing a friendship that both celebrates and transcends Japanese culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Umbriaco is the outgoing manager of English-speaking students at the association, where members practice, teach, and\n learn the art of Japanese tea. Most members, Umbriaco explains, are Japanese expats \u2014 but there\u2019s a growing number of\n students who don\u2019t speak Japanese, and that group is as diverse as L.A. itself<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The teahouse uses DreamHost to power its online\n presence<\/a>, which serves as a platform to reach across culture and language to pass the practice on to a new\n generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe members that are Japanese are getting older, and the practice of tea is a living art form,\u201d Umbriaco says. \u201cAnd\n in order for it to exist, especially in areas where the change is the greatest, they need to draw in a lot more\n people, and the web is the place to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

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