Who Is The Retired Master (Goinkyo)?
A know-it-all retiree who hosts tea parties
Retired Master (Cha no Yu)
The Retired Master is the hero of the classic rakugo tale Cha no Yu ("The Tea Ceremony"), the former owner of a large shop who has handed the business to his son and moved to Negishi. He knows nothing about tea etiquette, yet he bluffs his way through as if he did, making him quite a troublesome character.
In Episode 9, to fight boredom, he takes up the tea ceremony using the tea room and utensils in his home. Not knowing what matcha is, he dissolves green soybean flour (ao-kinako) in hot water, and when it won't foam, he adds the bark of a muku tree to whip up bubbles. He invites the tenants of the row houses he owns to tea parties and torments them with his awful tea and homemade sweets. In the end, a sweet thrown away by a guest flies over the hedge into a field, and a farmer mutters, "Tea ceremony again?" ending the story.
