The Book of Tea

Review

His delicate verbal images are a highlight, and in his 'twilight of evergreens' we share the teaist appreciation of beauty in simplicity -- Kristen Treen, The Guardian

From the Back Cover

‘Perfection is everywhere if we only choose to recognise it’

The Book of Tea describes how the beauty and simplicity of Japanese daily life is inspired by Teaism.

Okakura Kakuzo describes all the different aspects of the tea ceremony, from the role of the tea masters to the stages of making and serving tea. He shows how Teaism interconnects with spirituality, art appreciation and flower-arranging to bring joy to the individual and to enrich Japanese culture.

First published in 1906, this edition features delightful illustrations by Sayuri Romei and an afterword by Anna Sherman.

About the Author

Okakura Kakuzo was born in 1862, the son of a merchant. He learnt English as a child and went on to study languages at Tokyo University. There, he started a movement to preserve Japanese culture from the rise of modernism and westernization. At the age of only twenty-nine he was made principle of the National Art School and many of his students went on to become famous artists. In 1898 he resigned to found a dissident school of art. To raise funds, he travelled to America where he found a wealthy and interested patron in Mrs Isabella Gardner, ‘Queen of Boston’. Now a successful artist, he was also appointed curator of Chinese and Japanese art at the Boston Museum. A dramatic and extrovert character, he wrote The Book of Tea in 1906 and died seven years later, in 1913.

Anna Sherman was born in Little Rock, Arkansas. She studied Greek and Latin at Wellesley College and Oxford before moving to Tokyo in 2001. The Bells of Old Tokyo is her first book.