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From its origins as a distinct set of ritualised practices in the sixteenth century to its international expansion in the twentieth, tea culture has had a major impact on artistic production, connoisseurship, etiquette, food, design and more recently, on notions of Japaneseness. The authors dispel the myths around the development of tea practice, dispute the fiction of the dominance of aesthetics over politics in tea, and demonstrate that writing history has always been an integral part of tea culture.
List of contents
List of figures, Notes on contributors, Acknowledgments, Introduction to Japanese tea culture, 1. Commerce, politics, and tea: the career of Imai S kyu (1520-1593), 2. The transformation of tea practice in sixteenth-century Japan, 3. Shopping for pots in Momoyama Japan, 4. Sen K shin S sa (1613-1672): writing tea history, 5. Karamono for sencha: transformations in the taste for Chinese art, 6. Tea of the warrior in the late Tokugawa period, 7. Rikyu has left the tea room: national cinema interrogates the anecdotal legend, 8. Tea records: kaiki and oboegaki in contemporary Japanese tea practice, Select bibliography, Index
About the author
Morgan Pitelka is Assistant Professor of Asian Studies at Occidental College, Los Angeles, specializing the cultural history of pre-modern Japan.
Summary
A fresh and stimulating study of a traditional art which continues to exert influence on cultural practices inside and outside Japan.
Report
'A volume that succeeds so well in its agenda of opening up and modifying ways of thinking about Japan's tea culture deserves a wide readership.' - Monumenta Nipponica
