Sukiya craft meets nature as Kyoto’s Aman resort launches an Urasenke tea ceremony masterpiece in their tranquil gardens.
In mid December, Aman Kyoto inaugurated Tea House Senkutsu, a masterful evocation of 16th-century sukiya tea house architecture nestled in the resort’s secret forest garden. Designed by Sen Art Studio (that specialises in this type of traditional tea house architecture) and crafted by Nakamura Sotoji Komuten artisans, a leading collective of carpenters that specialises in traditional Japanese wooden architecture, the twin-room haven overlooks a tranquil pond via a mossy stone path nestled within the green gardens of Aman Kyoto resort.
“We have brought to life a space imbued with the refined beauty of the Japanese Way of Tea,” says Sen Art Studio’s Mr Toyama.
This new peaceful venue embodies omotenashi (the Japanese art of hospitality) and Urasenke traditions in Japanese ceremonial tea rituals. The intimate koma tea room demands humble entry unfolding into four tatami mats with a masu-doko alcove, and decorated with seasonal scrolls and shoji screens that dance light and shadow amid simmering kettles, brewing tea and fresh mat scents.
Adjacent, the ryu-rei room offers chair-seated accessibility for newcomers, linking to a mizuya prep space doubling as a hub for Japanese traditional sweet making, ikebana floral workshops, calligraphy, and local art classes, that will extend Aman Kyoto’s cultural offerings beyond the memorable kaiseki feasts and Zen meditations with monks. In Kyoto’s temple-dotted settings, the newly opened Tea House Senkutsu elevates mindfulness and tradition amid Aman’s luxurious pavilions in ceremonies speaking to purity and tranquility.
