Tea is a work of art and needs a master hand to bring out its noblest qualities. We have good and bad tea, as we have good and bad paintings – generally the latter. There is no single recipe for making the perfect tea, as there are no rules for producing a Titian or a Sesson. Each preparation of the leaves has its individuality, its special affinity with water and heat, its hereditary memories to recall, its own method of telling a story. But the story is good, even if I didn't feel the sense of urgency, and I enjoyed the characters and their growth. The world-building was really good too, I loved how unique and well done it was. Overall, a solid ending that certainly tied the story together. Manifold indeed have been the contributions of the tea-master to art … All the celebrated gardens of Japan were laid out by the tea-masters. Our pottery would probably never have attained its high quality of excellence if the tea-masters had not lent to it their inspiration, the manufacture of the utensils use in the tea-ceremony calling forth the utmost expenditure of ingenuity on the part of our ceramists. Born in Yokohama to parents originally from Fukui, Okakura learned English while attending a school operated by Christian missionary, Dr. Curtis Hepburn. At 15, he entered Tokyo Imperial University, where he first met and studied under Harvard-educated professor Ernest Fenollosa. In 1889, Okakura co-founded the periodical Kokka. A year later he was one of the principal founders of the first Japanese fine-arts academy, the Tokyo School of Fine Arts (東京美術学校 Tōkyō Bijutsu Gakkō), and a year later became its head, although he was later ousted from the school in an administrative struggle. Later, he also founded the Japan Art Institute with Hashimoto Gahō and Yokoyama Taikan. He was invited by William Sturgis Bigelow to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1904 and became the first head of the Asian art division in 1910.

The simplicity of the tea-room and its freedom from vulgarity make it truly a sanctuary from the vexations of the outer world. There and there alone can one consecrate himself to undisturbed adoration of the beautiful … Nowadays industrialism is making true refinement more and more difficult all over the world. Do we not need the tea-room more than ever? V: Art Appreciation Okakura goes on to explain Buddhist religions in greater detail, evidently due to concern the West remained completely clueless about it. His passion for the subject shines through to this day, as does his opinionated nature. In the trembling grey of a spring dawn, when the birds were whispering in mysterious cadence among the trees, have you not felt that they were talking to their mates about the flowers? I LOVED having Kang’s POV this time around! His tale of redemption was woven with care, and this tale is as much his, as Ning’s.

VII. Tea-Masters

I learned some quite surprising facts. For example, onions were added to tea in some places, and tea-drinking was considered to be an occupation of depraved people! As he explained in chapter II, Teaism is Taoism in disguise. This explains why those in the East took (and still take) it all so seriously – tea is another arm of Buddhism, their way of life, which assists them with finding moments of relaxation.

A new meaning grew into the art of life. The tea began to be not a poetical pastime, but one of the methods of self-realisation. Wangyucheng eulogised tea as ‘flooding his soul like a direct appeal, that its delicate bitterness reminded him of the after-taste of a good counsel.’ Sotumpa wrote of the strength of the immaculate purity in tea which defied corruption as a truly virtuous man. Among the Buddhists, the southern Zen sect, which incorporated so much of the Taoist doctrines, formulated an elaborate ritual of tea. The monks gathered before the image of Bodhi Dharma and drank tea out of a single bowl with the profound formality of a holy sacrament. It was this Zen ritual which finally developed into the Tea-ceremony of Japan in the fifteenth century. Welcome to the elegance of tea-ism. Weaving beauty with simplicity, I have much to learn from Japanese culture. Everything they do is done with such precision. The enthusiasm of the Sung people for tea knew no bounds. Epicures vied with each other in discovering new varieties, and regular tournaments were held to decide their superiority. The Emperor Kiasung (1101-1124), who was too great an artist to be a well-behaved monarch, lavished his treasures on the attainment of rare species. He himself wrote a dissertation on the twenty kinds of tea, among which he prizes the ‘white tea’ as of the rarest and finest quality. In The Book of Tea Classic Edition, he discusses such topics as Zen and Taoism, but also the secular aspects of tea and Japanese life. The book emphasizes how Teaism taught the Japanese many things; most importantly, simplicity. Kakuzo argues that tea-induced simplicity affected the culture, art and architecture of Japan.Translation is always a treason, and as a Ming author observes, can at its best be only the reverse side of a brocade, – all the threads are there, but not the subtlety of colour or design. Taoism accepts the mundane as it is and, unlike the Confucians and Buddhists, tries to find beauty in our world of woe and worry.

Great as has been the influence of the tea-masters in the field of art, it is as nothing compared to that which they have exerted on the conduct of life. Not only in the usages of polite society, but also in the arrangement of all our domestic details, do we feel the presence of the tea-masters … They have given emphasis to our natural love of simplicity, and shown us the beauty of humility. In fact, through their teachings tea has entered the life of the people. All of this ensured, due to tea, new ways of contemplating and living life were formulating in the East. Udall, Sharyn Rohlfsen (2000-01-01). Carr, O'Keeffe, Kahlo: Places of Their Own. Yale University Press. p.220. ISBN 978-0-300-09186-1.The Book of Tea describes all aspects of the Japanese tea ceremony and explains how its rituals blend seamlessly with traditional Japanese life. The enthralling conclusion to Judy I. Lin's Book of Tea duology— A Magic Steeped in Poison and A Venom Dark and Sweet—is sure to enchant fans of Adrienne Young and Leigh Bardugo. In religion the Future is behind us. In art the Present is the eternal. The tea-masters held that real appreciation of art is only possible to those who make of it a living influence. Thus they sought to regulate their daily life by the high standard of refinement which obtained in the tea-room. Stunningly, in the course of only 20 years, the nation blasted itself forward by several centuries and rapidly became a leading industrial nation. It remains a startling achievement, but the world was well and truly changing and everyone had to adapt to emerging revelations. Okakura writes at that time humans were truly feeling a “sense of proportion to the Universe”– in 1905, the year before the Book of Tea became available, Albert Einstein handed four articles into the Annalen der Physiks and changed the course of human history.