Hokkaido Chado Kaikan Urasenke Hokkaido

This Urasenke facility in Sapporo, on the large island of Hokkaido in northern Japan, was established in 1992, in memory of the fourteenth generation grand master, Tantansai (Mugensai), who passed away in Hokkaido.

On the grounds, there is a stele in Tantansai’s honor and a teahouse called the Mugen’an, designed for serving tea ryurei style. Across the lawn is a newly built four-and-a-half-tatami teahouse, also named Mugen’an, which is connected to the main building by a corridor.

The three-story main building has, on its first floor, four linked rooms — two of eight tatami, and the two between them, of six tatami — which together are named Kashoken, “House of Good Omen.” In the first of these rooms is a Rikyu Onsodo altar. The first floor also features a large kitchen for teaching kaiseki cooking. The second floor has a ryurei style tearoom and a lecture hall, and the third floor is comprised of a spacious tatami-floored room.