Immersive Japanese Tea Ceremony Experiences at Nitobe Memorial Garden: 2025
We are grateful to all of our guests and to the Nitobe Memorial Garden for making it possible for us to present this incredibly popular program for the third consecutive year!
This year, our Immersive Japanese Tea Ceremony Experiences ran monthly from June through September. This window allowed us to enjoy the best time of year to be outside and enjoy the subtle seasonal changes each month.
During our Tea Ceremony Experiences, guests were led on an immersive experience through the outer garden (roji) of the teahouse at Nitobe Memorial Garden as the space would traditionally be used. Everyone had the chance to slip into "garden sandals" to navigate the stepping stones, sit in the "waiting arbor," rinse their hands at the tsukubai stone basin, and enter the tea room through the nijiriguchi “crawling entrance.” Our Founder and Executive Director Maiko Behr, an established tea instructor in the Omotesenke tradition, shared insights into the design and cultural significance of the tea garden and the tea house structure itself. Once inside the tea house, guests enjoyed a matcha tea service with a special seasonal wagashi sweet prepared by Saki Fukuda.
We continue to keep our capacity low to ensure the most authentic experience of the roji and tea room spaces. Due to high demand, we did increase the number of sessions offered this year and plan to try to increase our offerings next summer as well.
This program was presented in partnership with the UBC Botanical Garden / Nitobe Memorial Garden.
We acknowledge the financial support of the Province of British Columbia.