Japanese Tea

Our student group from Chiba University put on a cultural hour today: origami, kimonos, tea. A number of colleagues were painstakingly tied into full kimonos (I can't remember the different words for male and female robes), and looked very elegant or handsome. They reported that this was also how they felt.
I, being too tall for the women's kimonos, tried the green tea. This was brave as I've tried it before and hated it! However, today I discovered that you are supposed to let a sugar cube dissolve on your tongue before drinking the tea. Totally different and much more to my taste.

This being a Japanese ceremony, the sugar cube was not, of course, an actual cube from a T&L box: it was powdered sugar moulded into a small lotus flower (?) shape.