★ Jun. 30, 2018
Shogetsu, Kyoto: kuzu-yaki (toasted ‘kudzu [Japanese arrowroot]’)
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Japanese cake made (generally) by steaming the mixture of 'kudzu’-starch mixed with water, sweet bean paste and so on, cutting the steamed mixture into pieces, coating each of the pieces with potato starch? and toasting it.
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#wagashi #japanesesweets #sweets #teaceremony #tea #chanoyu #matcha #foodie #dessert #japanesetea #food #japan #japanese #kyoto #京都 #お菓子 #和菓子 #スイーツ #お茶 #抹茶 #茶道 #茶の湯 #嘯月 #葛焼き
Kouyou performs tea ceremonies for a lot of reasons but all of them fall under two major categories (1) personal and (2) business.
Warning: mentions of violence and murder by poison at the end; improper use of sadou. Also implications of prostitution.
Personal
Kouyou often performs tea ceremonies even without guests to either clear her mind or to concentrate or to relieve stress. The entirety of sadou calms her. The familiar process of it that is stored in muscle memory, the smell of tea, savoring matcha and complementary wagashi... Sadou is her favorite past time, in a sense. She has been trained as a child to be master of ceremony and she has perfected the art.
Kouyou also uses sadou to bond with others. She invites people she wants to talk to or to reconnect with for tea and her ceremonies are well known within the mafia. When Kyouka was still with her, she taught her about sadou and she always prepared tea for her. Kouyou also enjoyed making wagashi with her and choosing wagashi and treats that would go along well with the tea in their tapestry. Aside from Kyouka, Kouyou also invites Chuuya over whenever their schedules allow them.
She makes sure to have even rotations among the girls and women who work for her. She uses this time to bond with them and to get to know them better. She enjoys talking with them and checking up on them as people. Chit chat and friendly ambiance. These types of ceremonies don't involve business talk. That is reserved for the business kind of ceremony to be discussed later. Her ladies can easily make the distinction because Kouyou uses different papers and writing styles.
She also signs business invitations with her Port Mafia executive seal. But for personal invitations, she uses paper that's more casual. Pretty stationary that is signed with her personal inkan... or her kiss mark if she's particularly close to the person she's inviting.
Business
Let's get down to business
(To defeat the huns)
Sadou for business is a silent battlefield, wherein she and her guests usually fight through wordplay and mind games. She invites people who she needs to extract information from... she invites people who the Port Mafia needs to do business with; to establish partnerships - business meetings held in a traditional setting with artistry and the purpose of alleviating tensions. A sweet honey trap.
Some of these business partners also go straight to her brothel or are offered and enticed by her ladies for the benefit of the Port Mafia.
She dislikes this use of sadou but she knows how to conduct these ceremonies efficiently. Sadly for her, these types of ceremonies have become more frequent than personal ones after she became an executive.
Now to expound on the aforementioned business ceremonies with her ladies. Business sadou with her ladies are status reports from her individual workers. She asks them how they’ve been, if customers have been pesky, etc. Asks them what they need and brainstorms with them on how to elicit information more effectively. They review protocols together and the like. But they also share information they’ve gathered and it’s like any other business meeting… except they do it over tea while drinking matcha and eating wagashi.
She uses these meetings to set examples, too. It’s morbid but when Kouyou invites all of her ladies to a business ceremony, they know that someone is going to get executed by means of tea and poison. Kouyou does this to warn the traitor to be gone before the ceremony or to… simply set an example. Either way, all traitors must die. Whether through the peaceful means Kouyou offers or through bullets and knives.
(Kouyou doesn’t enjoy it. She doesn’t call the traitor out. The traitor just falls down before the ceremony ends and all of them still finish the ceremony despite the presence of a corpse among them. Kouyou allows them all to comfort one another after the event as she and some others bury the body to the place where deserters from her brothel are taken after they are executed.)
In conclusion.
Ozaki Kouyou’s tea ceremonies are spectacles of awe, fear, beauty, and artistry that she facilitates for the Port Mafia or for personal reasons.
