Tea Whisk: Acquired

I went to Nak’s today and got a whisk (“chasen” = 茶筅) to make my powdered tea.

The whisks are cut from a single piece of bamboo, with one end thinly split many times over for the brush end, and come in different grades- how many bristles the bamboo is cut into will determine the coarseness of the tea.

I bought the 120 bristle one, but they had two coarser ones, down to 80 bristles.

It turns out that if you break your chasen, it’s bad luck to just throw it in the trash- once a year in May you have a ceremony, “chasen koyō,” in which you burn your brush. I have to be careful with this one because I have no idea where the nearest Shinto shrine is, even in San Francisco.

You need about 1 teaspoon of powder for every quarter cup of hot water.

• Wikipedia: Japanese Tea Ceremony