Last week, I introduced you to the history of green tea in Japan (READ HERE). With one of its main figures Eisai, who laid the foundation in the practicalities of tea and the philosophy of drinking tea.
Part 2
But I left you hanging on the changing mentality of tea. The philosophy of Eisai, "tea as a means of peace and tranquility”, grew less important. What became more important was the decadence of the tea and everything that started surrounding it.
One of the main causes was the Shogun and his love for Tōcha. A tea competition where attendees need to guess the tea sort according to the correct region of Japan.
To expand the experience of the event, Shogun Yoshimasa constructed the first tea room based on the rooms of Zen monks He build this room in his retirement villa at the Ginkaku-ji temple.
The tea room of the Shogun
The room was surrounded by tatami walls (rice paper) and plain wooden floors. The focus points of the room were the Chinese ceramics. These ceramics were rare and hard to get so it was the ultimate status medium.
Often the rooms were over the top and elaborate in wall decorations. The room didn't represent the philosophy of Eisai. The tea had fallen from its bright green colour to a gold leaf...
The Shogun had his own tea master, Murata Shukō.
Shukō grew up as an attendant to the Shōmyōji, a Buddhist temple in Nara near Osaka. His first encounter with tea was during his youth when he saw a Tōcha gathering. He saw the tea connoisseurs bustling about the different varieties of tea and the passion that fuelled them, this sparked his interest for the drink.
Way of the tea
To learn more about tea, he moved to Kyoto. Where he studied the Aristocratic Practice of the Tea Ceremony and was taught by Nōami, the art connoisseur of the Shogunate. After his studies Shukō went on to study Zen with the priest Ikkyū Sōjun. This priest taught him about the "Way of the Tea". Which laid the foundation for Shukō most important theories on tea.
Letter of the Heart
A mature Shukō wrote in 1488 a letter to his student called "Letter Of The Heart".
In this letter he addresses his concerns over the gaudy tea ceremonies by the Shogun. He emphasised that the tea ceremony should fixate on the combination of Japanese and Chinese ceramics thereby blending the various tastes.
Where the Chinese ceramics usually focussed on the perfection and regular shapes, the Japanese embodied the imperfection and flaws in the materials.
His emphasis on the imperfect also played a part in the setting of the tea room. Instead of elaborate wall paintings he preferred a more muted approach.
Shukō had four values in the tea ceremony:
kin, humble reverence
kei, respect for food and drink
sei, purity of body and spirit
jaku, the Buddhist concept of the symbol of calmness and freedom from desire.
The theories and values of Shukō can be compiled into one word, wabi-cha meaning roughly “simplicity,” “quietude,” and “absence of ornament”. Wabi meaning "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete". As a movement wabi-cha pushed the appreciation of local wares and styles
A wabi poem.
Show them who wait
Only for flowers
There in the mountain villages:
Grass peeks through the snow,
And with it, spring.
Fujiwara Ietaka (1158–1237)
Rikyū
With the values of Wabi-Cha and his "Letter of The Heart", Shukō left his legacy. This legacy was picked up by Rikyu, whose teacher studied under Shukō. Rikyu build upon the Wabi-Cha of Shukō and called it Wabi-Sabi, sabi meaning object.
Rikyu was the teamaster of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, an important political figure. He was tasked to design a tea ceremony to welcome the guests of Hideyoshi
He started to redesign the way tea was consumed. He constructed a farmer's hut made of mud, imperfectly shaped wooden beams and thatched roofs. Rikyu was a master at juxtaposition. He combined the new with the old, the expensive with the cheap and the complex with the simple.
One of these juxtapositions is repairing tea wares using Kintsugi, where gold is used to repair cracks. The juxtaposition of a rustic and old tea bowl mended with precious gold.
He also made various tools to use during the tea ceremony that oozed wabi-sabi like a flower vase made out of bamboo and a tea scoop made out of bamboo. Where in the past it was custom to use beautiful ceramics.
Rikyu thought that the authentic and aged was to be celebrated and admired instead of forgotten and that the act of preparing the tea should be done at utmost tranquility and presence. Bringing the philosophy of drinking tea back to its Zen roots and away from the consumerist culture of the upper classes.
Wabi-me
What I learned from Rikyu, was that objects have a certain soul to them. Last year I bought new ceramics in Morocco, to accompany my lonely teapot. A year later, a few cups have chips and scratch marks on them. One of the common reactions would be to think: "pity"
But learning more and more about Rikyu, Shukō and their concepts of wabi-sabi. I started to appreciate the rusticity and the signs of aging of these ceramic cups.
The philosophy of wabi-sabi and the act of drinking tea can also improve society as a whole. Laying emphasis on preserving rather than throwing away. Our consumerist values has focused on the new, far-away exotics and objects of status. While not looking at artisans from your own city or even in your street to obtain said product of perhaps similar quality or higher. Thereby supporting a artisan that put his heart and soul into the product and reflecting that energy that resonated when using their wares
Quality is not far away, you just need to know where to look and sometimes that may be around the corner of the street.
I will leave you with a quote from one of my favourite philosophers, John Ruskin from his book “The Stones of Venice”
“To banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality.”