Material Dreams

My sister and i have been talking a lot about Apple's iPad lately as we both would really love to get one. She may end up making the purchase but all i'm allowed to do is dream because the iPad is completely outside my budget.

But, that got me to thinking: if i were to win a LOT of money in a lottery and could buy anything i wanted what would i buy first? The iPad? A better laptop? A new car? A new house? A trip to Shikoku?

As bizarre as it seems (even to me when i realized i was serious), what i decided was none of those. Instead, the first things i would buy would be two Japanese tea cups made specifically for the tea ceremony, although i would use them on a daily basis for my regular sencha, gyokuro, and hōjicha. Both are sold online at Hibiki-an.

The first is black and 100x incredibly beautiful, with a price of about $900.



The second bowl is red, and still very, very beautiful, but i'd have to take off the 'incredibly' adjective, and i guess that's why it only sells for about $850.



Both bowls would, i think, completely transform the experience of drinking a cup of tea. But, that's what the tea ceremony is all about. You no longer have just the taste of the tea to enjoy, you have the sight of the bowl and the texture of the bowl in the palm of your hands to enjoy as well. And, because the beauty of the bowl would focus your attention more completely, the smell of the tea and the sight of the steam curling out of the top of the cup would also be more pronounced. And even more, because the whole experience is now so much more captivating, those extraneous thoughts that constantly run around in your head would die down for the short while you are enjoying that cup of tea, leading to a sanity inducing short break in your day.

Ahhhhh...., a morning of beautiful dreams. :-)