Christie Bartlett, Founding Director of Ursaenke Society, San Francisco talks about the history of Urasenke, why tea gatherings matter today, and the ripple effect of “peace through a bowl of tea.”
Artisans hand down tea-whisk tradition
This year marks the 1,300th anniversary of the relocation of the capital to present-day Nara, then called Heijokyo. And while tourists may flock to anniversary events, temples and shrines renovated for the occasion and to special public viewings of Buddhist statues and treasures, Nara has another treasure to be proud of. It is Takayama chasen, tea whisks used in traditional tea ceremonies.
Tea and Chinese Cultural Aesthetics
Pei-kai Cheng, founding director and professor of the Chinese Civilisation Centre at the City University of Hong Kong and author of the recent two-volume publication, The Complete Annotated Collection of Chinese Tea Books, explores the cultural significance of tea drinking during the Tang period (618–907 CE). Cheng discusses the change and continuity of “The Way of Tea” (chado) from the Tang-Song period to the Ming-Qing period, revealing the cultural diversity of the tea-drinking ceremony as influenced by various social entities and institutions and by agronomical and technological advances. This talk also examines how aesthetic appreciation and choice of wares for tea ceremony influenced the development of Chinese porcelain-making technology.
Video of a Tea Ceremony at Nezu Garden
An excellent video from “Let’s Visit Tokyo” provides a detailed look at what really happens during a private tea ceremony in a small tea hut in Nezu Garden in Tokyo. The video shows the whole “light-tea” portion of a tea ceremony. Be sure to check this one out!
Our ugly beautiful world
A scene of the Chapter "SEKI YA"(Gate Hut) of Illustrated handscroll of Tale of Genji (written by MURASAKI SHIKIBU).
BY AMIN GHADIMI – We live in a beautiful world.
Or do we? Every day the evidence to the contrary seems to mount, and to make such a sweeping claim in the face of so much national and global adversity feels fatuous, even callous and perhaps cruel.
But “everyone recognizes beauty / only because of ugliness,” claims the second verse of Jonathan Star’s translation of the Tao Te Ching. Perhaps we can sift through our ugly world and, despite ourselves, despite everything, winnow out all the dross that defiles it.
Mid-Winter Wagashi: Red Plum Blossom with Frost
A wagashi confection that was created in 1699 by Toraya is a beautiful and unmistakable expression of a mid-winter plum blossom. It is called Shimokobai 霜紅梅, or red plum blossom with frost.
Japanese aesthetics inspires 2010 fashion design
Italian-born, Paris based designer Maurizio Galante uses the Japanese concept of Wabi-Sabi for the inspiration behind his fashion designs.
Annual tea science symposium
The Lipton Institute of Tea has been investigating the scientific basis for traditional beliefs about the health benefits of tea, through its own internal research as well as collaboration with universities around the world. The institute has organised a series of tea science symposiums to provide experts an opportunity to share findings from new studies and discuss their clinical relevance, identify future research opportunities, and foster valuable networks and collaborative partnerships. This article includes discussions from the third annual tea science symposium organised by the Lipton Institute of Tea held in Bangkok, Thailand, early October last year.
Mega-rich export plan down to a tea
Forget about selling ice to Eskimos, how about exporting green tea to Japan? That’s the aim of an ambitious project on the Central Coast of Australia that could create a new export market worth millions of dollars a year.
What’s really happening during a tea ceremony
HIROSHIMA – by Courtney Coppernoll – There’s an unfortunate misconception going around that tea ceremony is a very serious, very rigid sort of practice. However, there’s a great deal more to the art than the formal presentation most people are familiar with.