Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/111

 decoction. Boiling water is poured on the powder, and the mixture beaten to a froth with the bamboo whisk. This thick, green gruel, a real purée of tea, is drank as a loving-cup in the usu cha ceremony, each one taking three sips, wiping the edge of the bowl, and passing it to his neighbor. The measures and sips are so exact that the last one drains the bowl. Made from the finest leaves, this beverage is so strong that a prolonged course of it would shatter any but Japanese nerves.

It is in the precise management of each implement, in each position of the fingers, in the deliberation and certainty of each movement, that the art of cha no yu lies, and its practice must be kept up throughout the lifetime of a devotee. Even with all the foreign fashions, the old ceremonial rites are as much in vogue with the upper classes as ever, and the youth of both sexes are carefully trained in their forms.

Much less pretentious and formal are the eel dinners with which Japanese hosts sometimes delight their foreign friends, as well as those of their own nationality. Even Sir Edwin Arnold has celebrated the delights of eels and rice at the Golden Koi, and there are other houses where the delicious dish may be enjoyed. When one enters such a tea-house, he is led to a tank of squirming fresh-water eels, and in all seriousness bidden to point out the object of his preference. Uncertain as the lottery seems, the cook, who stands by with a long knife in hand, quickly understands the choice made, and seizing the wriggling victim, carries it off to some sacrificial block in the kitchen. An eel dinner begins with eel-soup, and black eels and white eels succeed one another in as many relays as one may demand. The fish are cut in short sections, split and flattened, and broiled over charcoal fires. Black eels, so called, are a rich dark brown in reality, and the color is given them by 95