Video: Huntington Japanese Garden's New Teahouse and Tea Garden

Before the Japanese Garden at the opens to the public Wednesday after a , Patch got a look inside the teahouse and tea garden Tuesday.

Though the public will be able to view the outside of the teahouse and garden starting Wednesday, the inside of the garden and teahouse will be reserved for only special tea ceremonies not open to the public, teahouse curator Andrew Mitchell told Patch Tuesday.

In the first video above, we get a tour of the teahouse garden and David B. MacLaren, curator of the Asian Gardens at the Huntington, explains the garden’s significance and protocol in a Japanese tea ceremony.

In the second video above, Mitchell shows the inside of the teahouse and explains what exactly it will be used for and some of the detail that went into reconstructing the structure.

The teahouse is one of the most anticipated additions to the garden, which also added a waterfall, and its story is nothing short of miraculous.

“It’s a small house and it looks small but it’s a big project,” said Jim Folsom, Marge and Sherm Telleen/Marion and Earle Jorgensen Director of the Botanical Gardens, Tuesday.

Named Seifu-an, the Arbor of Pure Breeze, the

The teahouse was donated by the Pasadena Buddhist Temple to the Huntington for the garden and was shipped to Japan for restorations and shipped back where it was reconstructed to exact specifications and wrapped for protection.

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What do you think of the new teahouse and tea garden and their significance?