Table of Contents
Presentation
- See CQ16 Presentation of お菓子, wherein the basics of presentation are described, and how to use the 縁高. They suggest categorising sweets containers into:
| 縁高 | most formal; of which black again is most formal |
| 鉢物 | bowls, less formal |
| 盆るい | even less formal |
- Avoid mixing square tray with square お菓子; and round containers with round sweets.
- The 千歳盆 can be used for both the 干菓子 (lid) or 主菓子.
- Ulrich 23 explained: They are arranged CCW in a c-shape starting from top right, according to the order below.
| Level | Sweets |
|---|---|
| until 茶通箱 | 1 |
| 唐物 to 和巾 | 3 |
| 行の行 and 大円 | 5 |
| 真の行 and 大円 | 7 |
- If 7 sweets need to be served, they are:
| まんじゅ | あん in dough, warm or cold |
| きんとん | あん pushed through a sieve, cold |
| 餅 | soft |
| 茶巾絞り | あん pressed in the 茶巾 |
| せんべい | cookies |
| hard sugar | often colourful and formed, knots for example |
| fruit | readily edible |
- Palmer explained in a TeaLife podcast how with 3 sweets, they represent the past (something salted or preserved), the present and the future (fruit)
縁高
- Always only one sweet in the bottom layer for the main guest, upper layers maybe filled up
- くろみじ are wiped lightly just before service; if weather is warm, some water is sprinkled on the 縁高.
- First guest receives it (seam facing away from him), lifts upper layers, puts them down having turned them 45° to the left, puts one くろみじ in the bottom layer; then gives upper layers to next guest. Takes お菓子 onto かいし, then moves his layer to the next guest. The loose layers travel like this to the last guest, who reassembles everything in the same order as it was and returns it to the door.
- Note that here the lifting of the bowl or tray to show appreciation is not done; nor the おさきに-ing.
干菓子
- Two piles on the 盆, the one far right is more formal, higher ranking sweets and the nearer left one is more informal. Both should be of equal, uneven number, because the guests will take one from each pile. So 3 and 3, or 5 and 5 etc.
- If you don't want to have a huge pile of sweets, you could prepare a second tray to bring forth after the first round of teas.
Eating your own 和菓子 during 点前前
- When bringing your own sweets, and they are used in the 点前, the dialogue changes a bit: The host can either prevent the silliness of having to ask about the sweets by saying 'thanks for bringing those sweets' before the conversation moves to asking about the tea; or the guest can say 'thank you for using my sweets' after having inquired about the tea (Ulrich IV 19).
Freezing
For one お稽古 at Hiromi's, we had 練り切り sweets that had been brought at Toraya Paris, were frozen and thawed. They were a little bit less 'structurally sound', but fine otherwise.
