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 earned a B.A. from the University of Washington before dedicating seven years to immersive Chanoyu studies in Kyoto, Japan. As the only graduate of the Urasenke Professional College in the Pacific Northwest, Mitchell has made substantial contributions to the advancement of Chanoyu.
At the request of SEN Soshitsu XV, Mitchell returned to Seattle in 1981 to teach Chanoyu through the credited course at the University of Washington, held at the Seattle Japanese Garden's Shoseian teahouse. The teahouse, reconstructed with partial Urasenke funding, served as the UW studio classroom. In addition to her teaching responsibilities, Mitchell initiated community programs that continue to allow the public to engage with Chanoyu at the Shoseian teahouse. She also played a key role in the installation of the Ryokusuian teahouse at the Seattle Art Museum and contributed to the design of tearooms at the Everett Community College Nippon Business and Cultural Institute, where she has served as an advisor.
In 1981, 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 of the Consulate General of Japan in Seattle presented her with a Commemorative Award for her dedicated efforts to share Chanoyu with the broader community.
Timothy Sōwa 宗和 Olson Sensei has been an instructor at the East-West Chanoyu Center (EWCC) since 1999 and served as the professor for the University of Washington's Chado course for over 12 years. He studied English literature at Portland State University and the University of Washington before he began tea studies in 1982. Olson received his tea name in 1999 and subsequently pursued further professional training at the Urasenke headquarters in Kyoto, Japan. In 2001, he was awarded the Urasenke certificate of Junkyoju, a senior rank of merit in the Way of Tea.
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 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 sincerely appreciate the generous support of King County 4Culture in ‘Building for Equity’ funding for the tearoom construction, as well as ‘Arts Sustained’ support for programs throughout the year.