You are in Japan and a valuable tea ceremony bowl has been stolen from the Ura Senke School of Tea. What you choose to do next in your search for the tea bowl known as "Yukisoo" will take you all over Kyoto and beyond.

You are in Japan and a valuable tea ceremony bowl has been stolen from the Ura Senke School of Tea. What you choose to do next in your search for the tea bowl known as "Yukisoo" will take you all over Kyoto and beyond.

Nonfiction. Asian Studies. Tea. Tea drinking is now a global pastime and a delectable variety of teas are much sought after by connoisseurs worldwide. In this meditative volume to understanding, appreciating and serving Korean tea, authors Brother Anthony of Taize and Hong Kyeong-hee share their intimate knowledge of a cultural practice and art form, that at its core embraces universal principles of peace, refinement, and simplicity. THE KOREAN WAY OF TEA is a rich and inviting text, accompanied by full-color photographs of the beauty of Korea, her architecture, nature and people. This introductory guide is a welcome addition for anyone interested in tea and its extraordinary contribution to the Korean cultural tradition.

裏千家茶道を海外へ

A Bowl for a Coin is the first book in any language to describe and analyze the history of all Japanese teas from the plant’s introduction to the archipelago around 750 to the present day. To understand the triumph of the tea plant in Japan, William Wayne Farris begins with its cultivation and goes on to describe the myriad ways in which the herb was processed into a palatable beverage, ultimately resulting in the wide variety of teas we enjoy today. Along the way, he traces in fascinating detail the shift in tea’s status from exotic gift item from China, tied to Heian (794–1185) court ritual and medicinal uses, to tax and commodity for exchange in the 1350s, to its complete nativization in Edo (1603–1868) art and literature and its eventual place on the table of every Japanese household. Farris maintains that the increasing sophistication of Japanese agriculture after 1350 is exemplified by tea farming, which became so advanced that Meiji (1868–1912) entrepreneurs were able to export significant amounts of Japanese tea to Euro-American markets. This in turn provided the much-needed foreign capital necessary to help secure Japan a place among the world’s industrialized nations. Tea also had a hand in initiating Japan’s “industrious revolution”: From 1400, tea was being drunk in larger quantities by commoners as well as elites, and the stimulating, habit-forming beverage made it possible for laborers to apply handicraft skills in a meticulous, efficient, and prolonged manner. In addition to aiding in the protoindustrialization of Japan by 1800, tea had by that time become a central commodity in the formation of a burgeoning consumer society. The demand-pull of tea consumption necessitated even greater production into the postwar period—and this despite challenges posed to the industry by consumers’ growing taste for coffee. A Bowl for a Coin makes a convincing case for how tea—an age-old drink that continues to adapt itself to changing tastes in Japan and the world—can serve as a broad lens through which to view the development of Japanese society over many centuries.

This provoking new study of the Japanese tea ceremony (chanoyu) examines the ideological foundation of its place in history and the broader context of Japanese cultural values where it has emerged as a so called ‘quintessential’ component of the culture. It was in fact, Sen Soshitsu Xl, grandmaster of Urasenke, today the most globally prominent tea school, who argued in 1872 that tea should be viewed as the expression of the moral universe of the nation. A practising teamaster himself, the author argues, however, that tea was many other things: it was privilege, politics, power and the lever for passion and commitment in the theatre of war. Through a methodological framework rooted in current approaches, he demonstrates how the iconic images as supposedly timeless examples of Japanese tradition have been the subject of manipulation as ideological tools and speaks to presentations of cultural identity in Japanese society today.