The Duke of Cambridge has experienced a simple but spiritual Japanese tea ceremony to mark his arrival in the Far East country.

William who is making his first trip to Japan, was served tea by a grand master who has performed the ritual for his parents the Prince and Princess of Wales, and the Queen.

The second-in-line to the throne was taken to a centuries-old Tokyo teahouse and seated at a small table where he received the green tea, said to have life-prolonging properties.

The ceremony was performed in private with William joined by a few dignitaries including the governor of Tokyo, Yoichi Masuzoe.

The teahouse was built more than 350 years ago in Japan's Edo period and is a traditional single-storey wooden building of white paper walls and mat flooring which was restored in 1978.

Genshitsu Sen, whose ancestor laid down the philosophical ideas of chado, or Way of Tea, performed the spiritual ceremony aimed at refining the self as students seek the principles of harmony, respect, purity and tranquillity.

Dr Sen made the "thin tea" or usucha with powdered green tea.

Members of the media were allowed in to see the final moments and William drank from an antique Korean bowl cupped in both hands, at one point joking to his host: "I don't want to drop it."

William, who had removed his shoes like the other guests, spent around 40 minutes at the Nakajima tea house in the middle of a small lake within the Hama-Rikyu gardens.

Dr Sen, 92, who is the 15th generation of his family to hold a senior role in the spiritual art of tea making, said: "Prince William seemed to enjoy himself."

He added: "He seemed very at ease and he seemed to be a very straight, honest and kind young man.

"We gave him pink and green coloured sweets which reflected the theme of the girls' day festival on March 3."

The handmade sweets marked Hina-Matsuri, also known as the Doll or Girls' Festival, when families with daughters pray for the happiness and healthy growth of girls and cook special dishes.

A number of gifts were given privately to the Duke including a box of crackers, a book about the tea ceremony and a modern tea bowl decorated with a horse design in celebration of Prince George.

Dr Sen added: "When I gave Prince William the presents he said he would be taking them back to Kate."

In 1986 in Kyoto Dr Sen made tea for Charles and Diana when they visited the city during a tour of Japan and remembered the moment well.

He said: "They asked a lot of questions and the princess tried to make tea herself."

Dr Sen said he told William how he had travelled to the UK and enjoyed tea at Buckingham Palace and highlighted the tea loving nature of both the Japanese and those from the UK: "The English have a long tea tradition and here in Japan we have this important (tea) tradition known as Chado."

He explained William, who was joined by Britain's Ambassador to Japan Tim Hitchens, experienced a Ryurei style tea ceremony where drinkers sit at small tables rather then on the floor.

It was developed during the Japanese Meji period, when the country was opening up to the west during the second half of the 19th century, so non-Japanese could enjoy the tea ceremony.

Soon after the second-in-line to the throne's scheduled flight touched down at Tokyo's Haneda airport, Kensington Palace confirmed he had completed the last of his exams to earn his air transport pilot licence and would start work with East Anglian Air Ambulance in the summer.

The Duke, a former RAF search and rescue helicopter pilot, needed to complete 14 exams that ranged from meteorology to air law.

He will be employed by Bond Air Services, which runs a number of air ambulance and police aviation operations, and will join the company when he returns from his seven-day tour of Japan and China. He will undergo job-specific training before starting work in the summer.

Highlights of William's trip to the Far East include a visit to Beijing's Forbidden City and in Shanghai he will launch the three-day Great Festival of Creativity.

When William first arrived in Tokyo, Mr Masuzoe greeted him after his arrival at Haneda Airport and escorted him by speed boat across Tokyo bay to the Hama-Rikyu garden for the tea ceremony.

The boat trip was intended as an introduction to some of the venues for the 2020 Olympics which lie along Tokyo Bay. But cold wind and continuous driving rain put a dampener on the event.

William will spend the next three days in Japan for a visit that will see him meet communities that survived the devastating 2011 tsunami.

During the weekend he will be taken to the area deluged by the waters but some have claimed he will not meet families whose lives were blighted when the tsunami triggered the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Local leaders have accused Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe, a committed supporter of nuclear power who wants to restart the country's plants, of using the royal visit for his own aims.

According to local reports Mr Abe will join William on his visit to a public playground where contaminated soil has been removed - but it is believed he will not meet families driven from their homes by the nuclear disaster.

Tokuo Hayakawa, a Buddhist priest from the town of Naraha, two miles from the Fukushima plant, speaking about the Duke, told The Times: "I think Abe is using him.''

He added: "It's true that you can find children playing outside, and you can eat some Fukushima food. But to take that as the overall reality here is totally wrong. If I could, I would take him to these abandoned ghost towns, and to the temporary houses where people still live, so he could see the reality that we are facing.''