When Tomáš, Jessica, Flori and I (Jennifer #226) decided to book a workshop with renowned chasen maker Tanimura Tango, we’d never even heard of the small town of Ikoma. Tucked away in a quiet, mountainside corner of Nara prefecture, Ikoma is easy to miss unless you’re looking for it. Once we arrived, we found ourselves sad that we’d only allowed ourselves an afternoon to explore..
We arrived in Ikoma in the early afternoon, so naturally lunch was the first stop. Walking into Gnosis Center & Alchemy Cafe was like entering a pub in Middle Earth. The food was hearty and healing for the soul. Celtic, Medieval, and Viking inspired decor created a rustic atmosphere. To top it all off, the literal Lord of the Rings soundtrack was playing softly in the background. We didn’t recognize the music right away because we were pondering whether it could be the music from Frieren, but when the owner told us everything clicked. We tapped into our inner hobbits and ordered dessert too.
Gnosis Center & Alchemy Cafe: https://maps.app.goo.gl/jn67oMDWz7tttf7r7?g_st=ic
On a recommendation from the cafe owner, we paid a visit to Hozan-ji Temple. We weren’t expecting anything too fancy. After all, we’d each seen a few impressive shrines and temples by this point in our time at Obubu. Little did we know that a modest stairway was just the start of a beautiful, gentle hike through a large temple complex hidden by the trees and mountains.
Hozan-ji temple: https://maps.app.goo.gl/EafKRRxfgkHMEru89?g_st=ic
Sadly we didn’t have enough time to fully explore Hozan-ji, but we all agreed we’d love to come back to Ikoma just to finish the climb to the top.
Now it was time to make our way to Tanimura Tango’s workshop for the chasen making demonstration and hands-on session that we’d been looking forward to. Tanimura-san has a busy schedule: even on a Sunday, he had three other guests before us. So make sure if you want to visit him that you schedule an appointment in advance. The effort to secure a spot will be very well rewarded.
Tanimura-san is the 20th generation head of the Tanimura family. The Tanimuras have crafted chasen in the Takayama district of Ikoma for nearly 500 years. They were among 13 important chasen making families in the Edo Period; today, only three of those families remain. These families have passed their techniques down for generations, and for a long time chasen production methods were kept secret. But according to Tanimura-san, one family eventually opened their workshop to the public. Once video recording became possible, some visitors recorded the artisans at work and shared the recording with others. This leak of chasen crafting techniques ultimately led to an influx of cheaper, foreign-made chasen that caused a decline in even domestic sales of Japanese chasen.
It makes sense that chasen makers would guard their techniques more closely now, so the tea world is lucky that Tanimura-san opens his workshop to guests at all. He asked us not to record past a certain point in his demonstration though, and we made sure to respect his request.
After serving us a delicious cold brew karigane (a stem tea made from gyokuro processing byproducts), Tanimura-san really did walk us through the full chasen making process, all the way from an unassuming bamboo tube to a lovely, delicate whisk. After he demonstrated the process on one chasen, he handed each of us an almost finished chasen. They only needed the string looped through the tines to be complete, and we got to do that part ourselves. Tanimura-san said that technically the chasen could be considered finished once the string is woven to keep the tines from breaking off, but he didn’t end the workshop there. Otherwise we would have walked out with some very oddly shaped chasen. Instead, he carefully curled each tine of each chasen until all of them had the classic bell-shaped curve before twisting the middle tines together to make them stronger as a unit.
At the end of the workshop, Tanimura-san brought out trays for us to whisk matcha with chasens he’d made. We were impressed by how light the chasens were and how easily they generated foam. I remember thinking to myself, “so that’s what it’s like to use a tool crafted by a true master.”
Good food, cute streets to wander, a gorgeous temple, and an educational experience you’ll find nowhere else – what more can you ask for in a town? We all agreed we’d like to come back to Ikoma someday, and not just for another chasen.
– Tomáš 223, Jessica 225, Jennifer #226 and Flori 227