The Japanese tea ceremony, also called the Way of Tea, is a Japanese cultural activity involving the ceremonial preparation and presentation of matcha, powdered green tea. In Japanese, it is called chanoyu (茶の湯?) or chadō, sadō (茶道?). The manner in which it is performed, or the art of its performance, is called otemae (お手前; お点前?). Zen Buddhism was a primary influence in the development of the tea ceremony. Much less commonly, it uses leaf tea, primarily sencha; see sencha tea ceremony, below.
Tea gatherings are classified as chakai (茶会?) or chaji (茶事?). A chakai is a relatively simple course of hospitality that includes confections, thin tea (薄茶, usucha?), and perhaps a light meal. A chaji is a much more formal gathering, usually including a full-course kaiseki meal followed by confections, thick tea (濃茶, koicha?), and thin tea. A chaji can last up to four hours.
Read more about Japanese Tea Ceremony: History, Venues, Seasons, Koicha and usucha, Equipment, Usual Sequence of A chaji, Types of temae, Tea Ceremony and Calligraphy, Tea Ceremony and Flower Arrangement, Kaiseki (Cha-kaiseki), Tea Ceremony and Kimono, Tea Ceremony and seiza, Tea Ceremony and Tatami, Studying The Tea Ceremony, Terminology of 道 (dō) With Respect To Tea, Zen and Tea, Sencha Tea Ceremony
Famous quotes containing the words japanese, tea and/or ceremony:
“I am a lantern—
My head a moon
Of Japanese paper, my gold beaten skin
Infinitely delicate and infinitely expensive.”
—Sylvia Plath (1932–1963)
“O how terrible it must be for a young man—
seated before a family and the family thinking
We never saw him before! He wants our Mary Lou!
After tea and homemade cookies they ask What do you do for a living”
—Gregory Corso (b. 1930)
“That popular fable of the sot who was picked up dead-drunk in the street, carried to the duke’s house, washed and dressed and laid in the duke’s bed, and, on his waking, treated with all obsequious ceremony like the duke, and assured that he had been insane, owes its popularity to the fact that it symbolizes so well the state of man, who is in the world a sort of sot, but now and then wakes up, exercises his reason and finds himself a true prince.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)