Chamei is a Japanese word

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

 that may refer to the name given to a particular blend of powdered green tea (matcha

Matcha

refers to finely-milled green tea, most popular in Japan. The cultural activity called the Japanese tea ceremony centers on the preparation, serving, and drinking of matcha. In modern times, matcha has also come to be used to flavour and dye foods such as mochi and soba noodles, green tea ice cream...

) or to the name bestowed on an advanced practitioner of Japanese tea ceremony

Japanese tea ceremony

The Japanese tea ceremony, also called the Way of Tea, is a Japanese cultural activity involving the ceremonial preparation and presentation of matcha, powdered green tea. In Japanese, it is called . The manner in which it is performed, or the art of its performance, is called...

. In the first case, the word is written with the kanji

Kanji

Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...

 茶銘; in the second case, 茶名.

Names of tea blends 　茶銘

Blends of matcha are given names either by the producing plantation

Plantation

A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...

, shop or creator of the blend, or by the grand master

Iemoto

Iemoto is a Japanese term used to refer to the founder or current head master of a certain school of traditional Japanese art...

 of a particular tea tradition

Schools of Japanese tea ceremony

"Schools of Japanese tea ceremony" refers to the various lines or "streams" of the Japanese Way of Tea. The word "schools" here is an English rendering of the Japanese term ryūha .-san-Senke:...

. When a blend is named by the grand master of some tea ceremony lineage, it becomes known as the master's konomi, or favoured blend.

The custom of giving names to tea blends began around the end of the Muromachi period

Muromachi period

The is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate, which was officially established in 1338 by the first Muromachi shogun, Ashikaga Takauji, two years after the brief Kemmu restoration of imperial...

 (circa mid-16th century), with the master tea manufacturers (chashi) in the highly reputed tea-growing district of Uji

Uji, Kyoto

is a city on the southern outskirts of the city of Kyoto, in Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. Founded on March 1, 1951, Uji is located between the two ancient capitals of Nara and Kyoto. The city sits on the Uji River, which has its source in Lake Biwa. As of April 1, 2008, Uji has an estimated population...

 south of Kyoto

Kyoto

is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...

.

Names of tea practitioners 茶名

A practitioner of tea ceremony may be granted a name by which he or she is known in the tea world. The procedure and requirements vary by school, but generally only advanced students who have been licensed to take students of their own, and may thus be addressed as sensei, are given a tea name. The tea name as a rule is chosen and bestowed by the school's grand master, or iemoto

Iemoto

Iemoto is a Japanese term used to refer to the founder or current head master of a certain school of traditional Japanese art...

, and is recorded on a certificate.

Tea names are often poetic. They may incorporate the names of animals (crane

Crane (bird)

Cranes are a family, Gruidae, of large, long-legged and long-necked birds in the order Gruiformes. There are fifteen species of crane in four genera. Unlike the similar-looking but unrelated herons, cranes fly with necks outstretched, not pulled back...

, for example), trees or flowers, natural phenomena (seasons, wind, the moon), or personal characteristics ("quiet," "peaceful"), or may be based on Buddhist

Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...

teachings. If the person has a given name that is written in kanji, one of the characters in the chamei may be borrowed from that name.

It has historically been the convention for chamei to begin with the character 宗, pronounced "sō". Therefore, chamei are often referred to as sōmei.

Further reading

• Wakahara Eiichi, "The Evolution of Tea Brand Names," in Chanoyu Quarterly: Tea and the Arts of Japan, no. 84 (1996).