Portland Japanese Garden will offer a talk about incense and how to use it in daily life along with a demonstration of Japanese incense ceremony from 1:15 – 2:15 pm in the Jordan Schnitzer Japanese Arts Learning Center.
For over 1,000 years, incense has played a vital role in Japanese culture. Koh-do is the Japanese art of appreciating incense. It is one of the three major traditional Japanese arts, along with tea ceremony and flower arrangement.
After a slide lecture about incense, Eriyo Watanabe, a master of the Ren Shin Ryu School of Incense from Tokyo, will also demonstrate incense ceremony. In addition, guests will experience the fragrance of her original fermented neri-koh, a kneaded incense compound that contains fragrant incense woods, herbs, spices, and honey.
About the Presenter
Eriyo Watanabe is director of the Incense Research Institute and a master of Ren Shin Ryu School of Incense in Japan. She is an experienced master of incense who has been offering Japanese incense ceremony for 16 years. In addition, she is a well-known artist for her original blended incense, including her signature “fermented lotus incense,” using Japanese lotus flowers.
