Arts of the Tea Ceremony

Chanoyu (literally “hot water for tea”), alternately known as Sadō/Chadō (“The Way of Tea”), often described as “tea ceremony” in English, is an art of social interaction based around the preparation and consumption of matcha (powdered green tea). Considered an art form in its own right, since its development in the sixteenth century, tea culture has provided an important context for the creation, consumption, and display of art forms such as calligraphy, painting, ceramics, lacquerware, and metalwork, to name but a few. Scholarship on chanoyu began in the early twentieth century and burgeoned in the postwar period. Much of the scholarship is dominated by authors associated with the Urasenke School of Tea which has become the largest school both within Japan and internationally in the postwar period and has its own publishing arm, Tankōsha. There is therefore a bias in existing scholarship toward this school, its style of practice and history, however, this has begun to be corrected in recent years. There has been a trend away from focusing on a linear narrative of the development of chanoyu with a focus on the three so–called “founders” of chanoyu: Murata Jukō (Shukō) (b. 1422/3–d. 1502); Takeno Joo (b. 1502–d. 1555); and Sen no Rikyū (b. 1522–d. 1591). More attention is given to developments after the formative period in which they lived, as well as more nuanced approaches to the contributions of these leading figures. The material culture of tea has become an increasingly fruitful area of study, with attention being given not only to the objects themselves but to patterns of consumption, the role of tea practitioners as producers of tea utensils and patrons of craftsman, and the function of tea utensils in gift exchange, identity construction, and for cultivating political capital. Another burgeoning area of study is the role of women in both historical and contemporary tea practice, and what the study of tea brings to women’s lives. This is correcting the male-centered narratives of earlier scholarship. Much tea scholarship is historical but there is a growing interest in bringing academic perspectives to bear on contemporary practice. Recent English-language scholarship has moved away from the term “tea ceremony” because it is not a translation of any existing Japanese term, nor does it capture the breadth of the practice. The term “tea culture” or even simply “tea” is now preferred as it is more encompassing of the various art forms included within chanoyu.