Is the age-old tea ceremony ready for a cardboard future?

The world, at least for a moment, is still.

Inside the two-mat chashitsu (tearoom), it’s quiet. From the small tokonoma (alcove), fragrance from a satchel of aromatic pebbles gathered from Awaji Island in the Seto Inland Sea mixes with the gentle scent of the fresh tatami underfoot. Above, the ceiling made of translucent washi (traditional Japanese paper) scatters and softens the light.

Breathe and unwind. If you have some, sip your tea.

Then, slide open the thigh-height, cardboard nijiriguchi door and crawl out of the chashitsu as gracefully as you can — it’s past time to finish up the laundry, head to the next class or rush off to the next meeting in the office conference room.

That’s what the Chashitsu Zero offers, says Sousa Okochi — no matter what kind of hectic life you lead, a portable, cardboard chashitsu can be a haven of calm.

“The boundary between the chashitsu and the everyday world is an important concept in sadō (Japanese tea ceremony),” says Okochi, an instructor at Senshin-ann, a tea ceremony school located in Tokyo’s Asakusa neighborhood. “That’s the essence of Chashitsu Zero — a way for anyone to assemble their own, private tearoom wherever they are.”

With more than a millennium of history and numerous codified schools of practice (Okochi is an instructor in the Edosenke tradition), sadō is hardly an experience in tea making alone. A casual instance might last one or two hours depending on the number of guests and each school’s prescribed, ritualistic steps, and formal occasions can take up to four hours when all is said and done.

Given the weight of antiquity and etiquette inherent in even the airiest tea ceremony, does the casualness of a cardboard chashitsu turn its back on that wealth of tradition? Or is it just what modern sadō needs?

Despite weighing nearly 40 kilograms and having a number of small fasteners to keep each individual piece of the chashitsu in place, it only takes two of Okochi’s students about 10 minutes to assemble the entire tearoom; at roughly 1½ cubic meters, it’s large enough to sit comfortably, but I wouldn’t suggest standing up. While the majority is indeed cardboard — a point in favor of its sustainability, Okochi says — the tatami mats are authentic productions made by the same craftsman who helped decorate the Japanesque lair of the main villain in the 2021 James Bond flick “No Time to Die.”

Each Chashitsu Zero includes a few accessories typical of most traditional tearooms, such as a small light and a hanging scroll of a Zen kōan (a phrase or story to enkindle meditative thought), but one could argue that the true value of such a product is, as Okochi says, the separation it provides from the chaos of the outside world.

How do you put a price on inner peace on demand? Chashitsu Zero, however, does come with one: ¥180,000 (about $1,250) — chawan (tea bowls), tetsubin (iron kettles) and other chadōgu (utensils used in tea ceremony) not included.

“We tried to build Chashitsu Zero with all five senses in mind,” says Okochi. “Of course, it’s great if you’re a sadō practitioner, but tea is not essential. You can drink coffee, water — whatever you like. The goal is to have a relaxing space to yourself where sight, sound, smell, taste and touch are all helping you to be a bit more mindful, a bit more calm throughout the day.”

Tea in context

While holding back the disorder of the outside world with nothing more than a cardboard panel may not seem very traditional, the value proposition of a product like Chashitsu Zero does hold at least some water within sadō’s long history.

Sen no Rikyu, the 16th-century figure credited with popularizing sadō in Japan, valued simplicity above all else. The smaller the teahouse, the better, Rikyu thought, and fewer decorations both inside and out only helped to focus host and guest alike on the preparation and enjoyment of the tea before them.

Key to this aesthetic is the nijiriguchi — the, at times, comically small entrance requiring one to pass through on hands and knees. There is a lesson in humility here but also in practicality: With the death and destruction of the Sengoku Period (1482-1573) raging around him, Rikyu’s preference for small nijiriguchi made it difficult for samurai to take their arms with them into the chashitsu — a symbolic yet ultimately effective delineation between war and peace.

Whether an entrance big enough only to crawl through and four cardboard walls serve as a sufficient sanctuary from work emails, errands that won’t run themselves or the constant buzz of a smartphone may be up to the individual.

Tea versus tradition

It’s impossible to know whether Rikyu would approve of a chashitsu made from processed pasteboard, but one thing to note, says Randy Channell Soei, is that sadō has been evolving ever since it first came to Japan from China in the 9th century.

“I don’t like to rely on the term ‘tradition’ because, when Rikyu started, it wasn’t really a tradition, was it?” says Channell, a native Canadian based in Kyoto and, since 1999, a kyōju (professor) in the Urasenke school with the appended name Soei. “It was a little bit avant-garde at that time.”

Case in point is the concept of mitate (literally “comparison” or “selection”) where objects, aesthetics and behaviors that were conceived outside of the teahouse might be welcomed inside. Think Korean and Chinese chabako (boxes to carry tea ceremony implements) that were so highly prized by shogun lords as symbols of their erudition and the entire style of raku bowls that were first crafted by a 16th-century roof tiler.

“This has been a charm point that's been popular in tea since its inception,” Channell says. “There’s a whole history of improvisation, if you will — of bringing forward the way of tea.”

For his part, Channell has conducted tea ceremonies in boats, on planes and in other nontraditional settings during his decades as an Urasenke instructor. Sadō, in a cardboard chashitsu or at cruising altitude, remains a pursuit and a passion rather than a place, much like a church is defined by its congregation, not its chapel.

Of course, there is a line that people cross where they lose sight of the soul of tea — Channell points to a growing number of YouTubers who mix disco lighting and electric whiskers into the process — but that need not be a rebuke of every new, modern turn (corrugated or not) that sadō takes into the future.

“As long as people respect the four principles, which are harmony, respect, purity and tranquility, then I don’t think new ideas are too much of a problem.”