Japanese tea house

A chashitsu (茶室, literally "tea rooms") in Japanese tradition is an architectural space designed to be used for tea ceremony (chanoyu) gatherings.

The architectural style that developed for chashitsu is referred to as the sukiya style (sukiya-zukuri), and the term sukiya (数奇屋) may be used as a synonym for chashitsu. Related Japanese terms are chaseki (茶席), broadly meaning "place for tea," and implying any sort of space where people are seated to participate in tea ceremony, and chabana, "tea flowers", the style of flower arrangement associated with the tea ceremony.

Typical features of chashitsu are shōji windows and sliding doors made of wooden lattice covered in a translucent Japanese paper; tatami mat floors; a tokonoma alcove; and simple, subdued colours and style. The ideal floor size of a chashitsu is 4.5 tatami mats.

In Japanese, free-standing structures specifically designed for exclusive tea ceremony use, as well as individual rooms intended for tea ceremony, are both referred to as chashitsu. The term may be used to indicate the tea room itself where the guests are received, or that room and its attached facilities, even extending to the roji garden path leading to it. In English, a distinction is often made between free-standing structures for tea, referred to as tea houses, and rooms used for tea ceremony incorporated within other structures.

Tea houses are usually small, simple wooden buildings. They are located in the gardens or grounds of private homes. Other common sites are the grounds of temples, museums, and parks. The smallest tea house will have two rooms: the main room where the host and guests gather and tea is served, and a mizuya, where the host prepares the sweets and equipment. The entire structure may have a total floor area of only three tatami mats.

Very large tea houses may have several tea rooms of different sizes; a large, well-equipped mizuya resembling a modern kitchen; a large waiting room for guests; a welcoming area where guests are greeted and can remove and store their shoes; separate toilets for men and women; a changing room; a storage room; and possibly several anterooms as well as a garden with a roji path, an outdoor waiting area for guests and one or more privies.

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