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Psychology & SocietyThe Book of TeaKakuzo OkakuraThe Book of Tea

The Book of Tea

Kakuzo Okakura

Psychology & SocietyEnglish
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Writing in English for Western readers, Okakura Kakuzō uses the simple ritual of tea as a door into Japanese culture. He traces tea from a medicine in…

Catalogue details

Author
Kakuzo Okakura
Category
Psychology & Society
Language
English
Source
Project Gutenberg

About this book

Writing in English for Western readers, Okakura Kakuzō uses the simple ritual of tea as a door into Japanese culture. He traces tea from a medicine in ancient China to its place in Zen Buddhism and Taoism, describes the tea-room, a small, bare hut for a few guests, and explains the ideals behind the tea ceremony: simplicity, the beauty of imperfect and incomplete things, respect for nature in the arrangement of flowers, and the art of living in the present.

Context and significance

Okakura (1863–1913), a Japanese art scholar who worked at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, published the book in New York in 1906, partly to answer Western misunderstandings of Asia. 'Teaism', he wrote, 'is a cult founded on the adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday existence.' Compare Bushido and the Tao Teh King.

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