Bonnie Sōshin 宗 心 Mitchell serves as the senior-most Urasenke Chanoyu instructor in Seattle and is the founding director of the East-West Chanoyu Center, established in 1981. She obtained a B.A. degree from the University of Washington before committing seven years to immersive Chanoyu studies in Kyoto, Japan. As the exclusive graduate of the Urasenke Professional College in the Pacific Northwest, Mitchell has made substantial contributions to the advancement of Chanoyu.
Upon the request of SEN Soshitsu XV, Mitchell returned to Seattle in 1981 to instruct the credited UW Chanoyu course in the Seattle Japanese Garden Shoseian teahouse. The teahouse was reconstructed with partial Urasenke funding to serve as the UW studio classroom. In addition to her teaching responsibilities, Mitchell initiated programs enabling the community to engage in Chanoyu at Shoseian teahouse, and these programs persist to the present day. She also played a key role in the installation of the Seattle Art Museum Ryokusuian teahouse and contributed to the design of the tearooms at the Everett Community College Nippon Business and Cultural Institute, where she has served as an advisor.
In 1981, Ms. Mitchell received her professional name, Sōshin, from SEN Soshitsu XV. She was awarded the Urasenke Seikyoju degree (professor emeritus) in 2008, and in 2012, Consul General Kiyokazu Ota, Consulate General of Japan in Seattle, presented Ms. Mitchell the Commemorative Award for her dedicated efforts to share Chanoyu with the broader community.
Timothy Sōwa 宗和 Olson sensei, has served as the UW Chanoyu course lecturer and a Chanoyu Center instructor. Olson, who studied English literature at Portland State University and the University of Washington, began his tea studies in 1982 and received his tea name in 1999. Joining the East-West Chanoyu Center staff in 1999, he was honored with the Urasenke certificate of Junkyoju, a senior rank of merit in the Way of Tea, in 2001.
Akemi Soumi 宗美 Yamashita sensei, began teaching and promoting Chadō in 2008, engaging in various activities such as providing private and group lessons, presenting public lectures with demonstrations, and hosting Tea Gatherings (chakai) at educational institutions and public venues in the North Texas area. A graduate of Konan Women’s University in Kobe, Japan, with a bachelor’s degree in sociology, Yamashita pursued accounting studies at the University of Texas at Arlington after moving to the US. She retired from the accounting profession in 2019 and, in 2020, entered the one-year professional teacher training program for Advanced Research at the Urasenke College of Chadō. In 2023, she relocated from Dallas-Fort Worth to Seattle to join the teaching staff of the East-West Chanoyu Center.
We are grateful to King County 4Culture for the generous capital campaign support for the tearoom construction, and the program support for weekly Tearoom Tours and the Four Season Tea Ceremony events.