Camellia Tea Ceremony💄ROUGED WALLS & COURTESANS💋
The small temple of Zentoku-ji (善徳寺) is located in Ōmiya Matsubara (大宮松原). Much of its history is a mystery (important documents lost in successive fires), but we do know how the temple's famous red walls came about.
In the early 19thC the wealthy merchant Kimura Heibee (木村平兵衛), a local parishioner, constructed the current gate and gifted the temple a deep red paint for the walls.
Kimura owned a beni-ya (紅屋), a shop specialising in products primarily used for colouring lips.
Extracted from safflower petals, 'beni' (紅 lit. 'deep crimson') pigment gave its name to rouge and lipstick. Kimura specialised in a luxurious (and particularly expensive) shade known simply as Kyō-beni (京紅 'Kyōto Red'), popular with geisha houses and courtesans.
