Sennyū-ji Temple

Sennyū-ji Temple (泉涌寺) is a place of profound imperial dignity as the official family temple (bodhi temple) of the Japanese Imperial Household, while also holding a truly unique and fascinating place in the history of Japanese tea culture 🌸

Matcha is hugely popular worldwide right now, yet the tea most commonly enjoyed in Japan is actually sencha 🍵.

Surprisingly, sencha also has its own elegant tea ceremony tradition, very similar in spirit to the matcha ceremony.

One of the distinguished schools of this “Sencha-dō” (the Way of Sencha) is the Chikuzen-ryū (竹泉流), which was born right here at Sennyū-ji.

This school elevated the everyday culture of brewing sencha in a kyūsu (teapot) into a refined artistic discipline, preserving its graceful traditions and passing them on to the present day 😊