The Book of Tea
Kakuzo Okakura · 1906
4.8 · 4 ratings
About the book
A Japanese curator explains his civilisation to the West through one cup of tea: Taoism, Zen, flowers, architecture and the art of the imperfect, in seven short chapters of flawless English. The most graceful book on this shelf, and it knows it.
Try the short course
Part 1 · A whole philosophy in one cup. The first six slides, free.
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Tea began as a medicine and grew into a drink. China made it poetry in the eighth century; in the fifteenth, Japan raised it into something close to a religion, which Okakura calls Teaism.
His definition is worth reading slowly. Teaism, he says, is founded on adoring the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday existence.
Notice where he puts the beauty. Not in a temple, not on a mountain, not in some better life that starts once the dishes are done. It sits in the middle of the ordinary: the tired afternoon, the kettle that needs scouring, the guest who arrives late. Teaism does not ask you to escape the day you actually have. It asks you to find the one thing in it worth adoring, and to take that thing seriously.
Inside the course
12 parts- The cup of humanity — tea as a philosophyFree above
- The schools of tea: boiled, whipped, steeped
- Taoism and Zennism, poured into the cup
- The tea-room: an abode of the unsymmetrical
Questions
Is The Book of Tea free to read in Astra Trainer?
Yes. The full book opens free in the app’s reader, in English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, and Russian.
What is the short course?
12 short parts that walk through the book’s key ideas in slides, each with a quick quiz. The first six slides are free to try on this page.
Where do I get the app?
Astra Trainer is free on the App Store and Google Play. The Book of Tea is waiting in the app’s library.
