Tea Over Rice

Ochazuke no aji The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice
Original Japanese movie poster
Directed by	Yasujirō Ozu
Written by	Kōgo Noda, Yasujirō Ozu
Starring	Shin Saburi Michiyo Kogure Kōji Tsuruta Chikage Awashima
Music by	Ichirō Saitō
Cinematography	Yuuharu Atsuta
Edited by	Yoshiyasu Hamamura
Distributed by	Shochiku
Release date	1952
Running time	115 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

Tea Over Rice or The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice (お茶漬けの味, Ochazuke no aji) is a 1952 Japanese film directed by Yasujirō Ozu. The screenplay concerns a wealthy middle-aged couple (played by Shin Saburi and Michiyo Kogure) who have marital difficulties, and their niece who uses the couple's troubles as her excuse for not attending arranged marriage interviews.

Taeko (Michiyo Kogure) and Mokichi Satake (Shin Saburi) are a childless married couple living in Tokyo. The husband, whom the wife thinks dull, is an executive at an engineering company.

Taeko's friend Aya (Chikage Awashima) persuades Taeko to falsely claim to her husband that Taeko's brother's daughter, Setsuko (Keiko Tsushima), is ill, so that she can go to a spa with a couple of friends. The plan goes wrong when Setsuko visits her house unexpectedly, but Taeko substitutes the invalid with another friend and obtains consent from her husband to go for a break.

Setsuko has to go for a matchmaking session although she is unwilling to do so. Seeing that Mokichi and Taeko are not happy after their arranged marriage, she is determined to find her own spouse. Mokichi's family tasks Taeko to act as matchmaker for Setsuko at a kabuki theater, but Setsuko runs off midway and goes to see her uncle, who brings her back to the theater and leaves, after which she runs off again. She joins Mokichi at a pachinko parlor with his younger friend Noboru (Koji Tsuruta). Mokichi asks Noboru to bring Setsuko back home as he heads home.

Setsuko does not go home, but instead goes to her uncle's house, where Taeko is fuming. When Taeko realizes that Setsuko and Mokichi have been together, she becomes so angry that she refuses to speak to her husband for days. The two have a confrontation, when Mokichi tells her that he finds his old habits hard to break because smoking inferior cigarettes and traveling third-class on a train remind him of the simpler pleasures of life. Taeko leaves in a huff.