Camellia Tea Ceremony🌧️'THE PLUM RAIN'☔️
June heralds the rainy season in Japan. Known as 'Tsuyu' (梅雨), the 'Plum Rain', this period coincides with the plums ripening.
The damp weeks are marked by their dazzling greenery and the appearance of the celebrated hydrangea.
The mesmerizing, ultrahydrophobic surface of a lotus leaf😵💫👏😊
on lotus leaves
this world's dewdrops
are warped
蓮の葉に此世の露はいびつ也
-Kobayashi Issa (小林一茶), 1819.
Tr. David Lanoue.
#lotus #Shōseien #渉成園 #Kyoto #京都 #Japan #rainyseason #梅雨 #plumrains
Originally a Chinese term, the name 'Plum Rain' applied to the 4th and 5th lunar months, and the belief that the rainy conditions were created by the plum trees south of the Yangtze.
When the plums turned yellow and dropped, it is thought the moisture created turned to rain.
#Kyoto #京都 #Japan #rainyseason #梅雨 #plumrains #woodblockprint #ukiyoe #浮世絵
The poet Du Fu (杜甫 712–70) helped romanticize the idea of plums causing the rains.
But...while it is a lovely image (rain showers misting up from plum trees), the simple truth is that plums ripened at the time of the wet season, and so the name 'Plum Rain' was born🌧️
Kyōkadō Toshiyasu's (京華堂利保) famed 'shigure-gasa' (しぐれ傘 'umbrella for a brief downpour') would have been the perfect rainy season sweet, but sadly the store closed for good at the beginning of the year.
The cake is (was😭) branded on top to look like an open umbrella.
The sweet is named after a famous poem by Yosa Buson (与謝蕪村 1716-84).
Caught in a downpour on his way to the city, he borrowed an umbrella at Konpuku-ji (金福寺)...
it may transform itself,
this umbrella lent by a temple,
in the winter rain
化けそうな傘借す寺の時雨かな
(Trans. Blyth)
Rather than a ghost, Yosa is referencing a 'kasa-obake' (傘おばけ), an umbrella that has obtained a soul thanks to its old age.
Inspired by the poem, Kyōkadō Toshiyasu created their 'haiku sweet' in 1903.
