Journal

Notes from under the arch. Rituals, recipes and the people who keep the stove going.

A freshly tied birch vihta on a wooden bench

Ritual

 - 6 min read

How to tie a vihta

Every June we cut birch on a friend’s farm in Kent and tie two hundred whisks. Here is how, in eleven steps and one long afternoon.

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Ritual

Recipes

People

The arch

Steam rising from the stones after a ladle of water

The arch

 - 5 min

What actually happens when you pour water on the stones

A short explanation of löyly, the Finnish word for the wave of heat that rolls off the stove and finds you on the top bench.

A young man in a towel sitting on the lowest sauna bench, looking up into the steam

Ritual

 - 4 min

Your first round

What to bring, where to sit and when to leave. A short guide for first-timers.

Dark olivine stones stacked on the sauna stove

The arch

 - 4 min

Why we use olivine

The stones that hold heat for hours and never crack.

Birch leaves drying on wooden racks beside a jar and a blue enamel teapot

Recipes

 - 3 min

Birch leaf tea

Dried in the loft, steeped for five minutes, always free.

Mira, our heat master, with a linen towel over her shoulder against a brick wall

People

 - 7 min

Mira, heat master

Fourteen years of Aufguss and a towel she will not wash.

A wooden sand timer and ladle on the aspen wall of the sauna

The arch

 - 2 min

Why the sand timer

Fifteen minutes, give or take. Why there are no clocks in the sauna.

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