Entoten Tea Whisk Zoom Webinar with Tanimura Tango: Everything About Bamboo Tea Whisks

Workshops and Webinars Tanimura Tango

Entoten will be hosting a fun evening webinar with Tanimura Tango, 20th generation master tea whisk maker based in Nara, Japan.

In this 90 minute webinar that will be conducted in Japanese with English translation, participants will learn about the history of bamboo tea whisks, its material, types, and how they are made. There will be a Q&A session with Tanimura-san after the presentation.

$20 per person (limited to 20 participants)

Please register by purchasing a spot online.

A Group of Takayama Chasen is added to the collection of San Diego’s Mingei International Museum

Mingei Tea Tanimura Tango

Takayama chasen by Tanimura Tango in our shop ->

Entoten is delighted to announce that the Mingei International Museum in San Diego has recently acquired a group of Takayama Chasen (tea whisks) by Tanimura Tango for its collection. This is ground-breaking because the story of the humble bamboo whisk, is hardly ever told in other museums, where much of the focus is given to the tea bowls and other utensils. But without the chasen, there will be no matcha nor other utensils, be it in your home or any school of tea.

A group of Takayama chasen acquired by the Mingei International Museum
The exhibit of tea whisks that includes many from the ancestors of Tanimura Tango at his showroom in Nara
(Photo Courtesy of Tanimura Tango)

The Tanimura family has been making chasen in Takayama, Nara prefecture, for nearly 500 years over 20 generations. During this pandemic, my awe and gratitude for the Tanimura family’s dedication to their craft was renewed because, the adversities that they must have overcome in their history of half a millennium was brought into perspective.

Chasen master Tanimura Tango making a tea whisk
(Photo courtesy of Tanimura Tango)

A chasen is made of a single piece of bamboo, and it is a highly renewable, natural material that is kind to the environment. It is flexible to be able to mix the powdered tea efficiently, but without damaging the bowl. So it is difficult to find a utensil that is as perfect as a chasen.

I hope that this consummate utensil will become a more familiar object to the people here, through the collection of the Mingei International Museum, soon to be reborn in the heart of San Diego’s beautiful Balboa Park. The Museum is currently closed to go through a major transformation and will reopen in 2021, continuing to shine a light on Mingei: the art of the people from all eras and cultures of the world since 1974.

The construction of the multi-purpose theater has begun at the Mingei International Museum.
Artist rendering of the new Mingei multipurpose theater space for lectures, concerts, films, dinners, and other events.
(Courtesy of Mingei International Museum, artist rendering by LUCE et studio)