Composing a Tea Gathering 2 — Baumkuchen and Free Association
A Baumkuchen lid rest by Shigaraki ceramic artist Q Tani.
A lid rest shaped like a Baumkuchen.
My first thought is simply: how charming. But almost immediately, I find myself asking, “What kind of theme could I build around it?”
Baumkuchen.
The obvious thought might be autumn—traditionally celebrated in Japan as the season of a hearty appetite.
But no. Tree rings.
Layer upon layer: a symbol of accumulating happiness, a wish for longevity, or for generations of a family to prosper.
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Since Baumkuchen originated in Germany, it might also lend itself to a gathering with some connection to Germany.
Baumkuchen was first introduced to Japan by Karl Juchheim, whose name lives on today in the Japanese confectionery company Juchheim. Among the company’s admirers, it is said, was the novelist Jun’ichirō Tanizaki.
The history of Juchheim is fascinating—or, if “fascinating” seems too light a word, deeply thought-provoking.
Karl Juchheim, who would later establish the company, originally trained as a confectioner in Germany. Hoping to build a business of his own, he moved to Qingdao, then a German-leased territory in China, and in 1909 opened a café under the name Juchheim.
When the First World War broke out, Japan captured Qingdao. Juchheim became a prisoner of war and was brought to Japan. He was initially held at a camp in Osaka, but was later transferred to a quarantine station in Hiroshima for an influenza vaccination. Around that time, Hiroshima Prefecture organized an exhibition and sale of works made by the prisoners. Juchheim was asked to prepare confectionery, including Baumkuchen. The venue was the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall—the building later known throughout the world as the Atomic Bomb Dome.
His Baumkuchen was well received, and life as a prisoner in Japan appears to have been unexpectedly tolerable. Juchheim eventually brought his wife and child from Qingdao and decided to remain in Japan after the war.
He first worked as head of confectionery at a café opened by the president of Meidi-Ya, before eventually opening his own shop in Yokohama. The business prospered, but the Great Kantō Earthquake destroyed the shop, and he lost virtually everything.
Through personal connections, Juchheim and his family relocated to Kobe. Using relief funds, he opened a café called “JUCHHEIM’S” in Sannomiya, and it became highly successful.
Then came the Second World War. The business suffered damage from air raids, and Juchheim himself became ill. He died on the day before Japan accepted the Potsdam Declaration.
After the war, the Allied Occupation authorities repatriated the Juchheim family to Germany. But former Japanese employees set out to rebuild the company and established a new corporation. Juchheim’s wife, Elise, later returned from Germany and became its president. She died in Kobe in 1971.
Japan and Germany. Two world wars and the Great Kantō Earthquake. Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe. Layers of twentieth-century history seem to accumulate here almost like the rings of a tree.
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A cake baked by fire, with associations of hearths and ovens: autumn and winter.
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Baumkuchen is made by baking layer upon layer. Repetition. Yet what appears to be repetition is never entirely mechanical; each layer differs slightly from the last. Difference and repetition.
The practice of tea, and the tea gathering itself, are much the same. The same actions are repeated again and again, yet every occasion is an ichigo ichie—a once-only encounter—an accumulation of moments that can never be repeated in exactly the same way.
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Wood. Forest.
A tree stump.
A stump cut from one of the trees growing on a mountain in a landscape painting.
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Through wordplay and association, an image begins to expand.
A lid rest is not one of the principal utensils in a tea gathering. It is more like a condiment in cooking: a small thing, but one that can change the character of the whole. A utensil that leaves you unsure whether it is entirely serious or slightly playful can give a gathering an extra richness and depth.