Chasen Bamboo Whisk
Chasen
Carved in Takayama — the home of the chasen for five centuries — from a single node of aged bamboo. Eighty fine prongs whip air into matcha for a dense, lasting crema. With care it will serve you for years before the tines soften.
Character
✦Ships within 48 hours from Takayama, Nara. Complimentary gift-wrapping on request.
- Prongs
- 80 (chū-araho)
- Material
- Aged white bamboo
- Origin
- Takayama, Nara
- Care
- Rinse, air-dry on a kusenaoshi
The Legend
Some five hundred years ago, at the dawn of the tea ceremony, the tea master Murata Jukō asked a lord of Takayama to fashion a tool that could beat powdered tea into foam. From a single node of bamboo he split the first chasen — and the secret of its making was passed down, one heir at a time, isshi sōden.
To this day a handful of Takayama families carve each whisk by hand, splaying one length of bamboo into as many as eighty fine prongs without ever cutting it apart. It is the smallest instrument in the ceremony, and one of the most exacting in all of Japan.
