- New Year’s tea / good luck tea / lucky tea (fukucha)
Early in the morning of the New Year, even before breakfast, a tea is prepared, traditionally with the year’s first scooped water from the well, plenty of tea leaves, pickled plums, seaweed and sometimes mountain pepper in the brew. Sometimes it is sprinkled with gold flakes. It is shared for good health, good luck and in celebration of a communal “birthday” for according to early Asian traditions, everyone is a year older on New Year’s Day.
- first wind in the pines (hatsu shoorai)
This is a wind that is strong enough to move the pine branches causing a moaning or sighing sound.
Yuki Teikei Haiku Society 