Kyoto, in the seventies.

The story is written in the first person: a young Frenchman is introduced to the tea ceremony by a sensei (she who passes on her knowledge and experience), Madame Yamamoto. They await the arrival of one of the participants, Shimizu-san. Her first name, Ichie, evokes both the "meeting" (ichie) of two young people over tea and the Buddhist term ichigo ichie, literally "one time, one meeting", which is part of the Way of tea.

As feelings blossom between Yamamoto sensei's two students, Ichie reveals her family's tragic secret to the young man during an unusual tea ceremony.

In this weightless story, as airy and light as the flow of tea and almost without a plot, everything rests in the atmosphere, in a feeling of strangeness and fascination which carries the reader through a cleverly orchestrated story. It may be thought reminiscent of the film released in 2020 by Tatsushi Ômori, Every Day a Good Day, and Thousand Cranes, by Kawabata Yasunari.

From the Author of the acclaimed Lettres d'Ogura.