One bowl, one meeting

一期一会 — ichigo ichie

In this room there is only the sound of water and the quiet of hands. The host folds a cloth. Steam lifts from the bowl like a thin thought. Guests sit seiza, not to suffer, but to arrive fully in a single shared hour that will never return in the same form.

Nothing here is hurried. The whisk does not conquer the tea; it invites foam. Bitterness is not corrected — it is accompanied by sweetness elsewhere, by the garden’s moss, by the scroll’s single character.