About the Tea Room & Garden
The Sokiku Nakatani Tea Room and Garden provides a unique opportunity to immerse students and the community in a time honored art form of the Way of Tea including its history, cultural practices and aesthetic expressions in landscape, calligraphy, and tea ware.
Built in a setting that allows individual and group participation, the room is a fully interactive learning environment that is at once authentic and instructive. The adjacent Tea Garden is a place of beauty in its own right and is integral to the full experience of a traditional tea gathering functioning as an entrance to and preparation for the experience of visiting the Tea Room and being served tea in the traditional manner.
In addition to serving as a classroom, the Tea Room and Garden act as a perfect setting for cultural programs, lectures and special events. The eight tatami chashitsu (tea room) is complete with mizuya (preparation room) and roji (pathway or entrance) and provides an ideal interactive learning environment. An exhibit area and seating for up to 40 participants form part of the interior space.
The Sokiku Nakatani Japanese Teaware Collection presents the ceramics, scrolls, and tea utensils collected and used by Sokiku Nakatani in her studies and as a teacher of Chado (the Way of Tea). The 147 items in this Collection were donated to California State University, Sacramento in 2006 and are housed in the University Library’s department of Special Collections and University Archives. This personal collection of Sokiku Nakatani, demonstrates her level of expertise, interests, and aesthetics, and they also serves to promote understanding and interest in the study of tea and in Japanese culture and design.
Sokiku Nakatani (1903-1990)
Mrs. Kikuyo Nakatani (nee Morimoto) was born in Hiroshima, Japan, in 1903 and emigrated to Isleton, California in 1920. She married in 1921 and with her husband, Kinjiro, farmed in the Florin/Elk Grove area before and after World War II. Following the death of her husband in 1957, Mrs. Nakatani moved to Los Angeles in 1958. After her relocation to the West Los Angeles area, she began formal study of Chadô around 1960 with Madame Sosei Matsumoto, one of the nation's most influential and highly regarded Urasenke tea masters. Mrs. Nakatani received her tea name "Sokiku" from Urasenke Headquarters in Japan, having achieved mastery in tea, leading to the license of "First Degree Instructor" or Jun Kyoju.
