In my mind, the figures of Tadao Arimoto and Kakuzo Okakura merge. From reading about Okakura, I know that his temperament was more severe than Arimoto's, but it is from these two men -- Arimoto, a Pittsburgh artisan and wood worker, and Okakura, a scholar who died in 1913 -- that I have learned what I know about the art of the Japanese tea ceremony.
I shouldn't have liked to pass through this life without knowing what they taught me.
In the first paragraph of his book, "The Book of Tea," Okakura writes: "Tea began as a medicine and grew into a beverage. In China, in the 8th century, it entered the realm of poetry as one of the polite amusements. The 15th century saw Japan ennoble it into a religion of aestheticism -- Teaism.
"Teaism is a cult founded on the adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday existence. It inculcates purity and harmony, the mystery of mutual charity, the romanticism of the social order."
Tea in so tranquil and routinized an environment as required at the Japanese tea ceremony eases the cares of the day and replaces them with a sense of place in the universe. It is a lot for tea to do, but it does it. The rituals of the ceremony are such that the participant must give up all other thoughts except those dealing directly with the next prescribed act.
Even we Pittsburghers, a class of six who were trying in two three-hour sessions to learn an aesthetic that requires years of study, felt the wonder of it. That was because we had Arimoto, in ceremonial dress, and his two kimono-clad hostesses, Yoko Motoyama of Fox Chapel and Mika Gladden of Downtown, to help us.
The classes took place in the basement workshop of the Society for Contemporary Craft, Strip District. The floors are concrete, the wooden work tables unfinished, and covering the back wall is an arrangement of exposed pipes, wheels and registers that looks like a piece of contemporary art. In this less than ideal space, using tatami mats and portable screens, Arimoto created a temporary tea room approximately 10 feet square. In the tea room, he hung the requisite scroll and under it placed a table holding a vase with a few flowers. Tradition dictates that the flowers be ordinary ones from the garden. Fragrant incense filled the space.
"Treat your guest with warmth, and simple tea
using simple equipment."
As the equipment used is often of great antiquity and very beautiful, the word simple can be interpreted as refined in this translation of Japanese haiku from "The 100 Haiku of Rikyu." These verses remain superb expressions of the theory behind the tea ceremony. They were written by Sen Rikyu (1522-1591), considered the greatest of all tea masters and the person who established the four basic principles of Chado -- the way of tea. These are harmony (merging into the spirit of the ceremony); respect (a conscientious effort at understanding); purity (the significant psychology of hygiene); and a tranquillity that liberates the spirit.
"Handle heavy things lightly
and light things with dignity."
"When putting something down,
remove your hands as if you are leaving a loved one."
I see the virtue in these admonitions. Like many Americans, I'm on overload: too many things to do, too little time to do them. I go slamming through life -- slam the car door, slam the money down, throw the groceries into the back seat. Rooted in Zen philosophy, the Japanese tea ceremony is a call to think before you act and to take what you learn from the experience into the real world.
We enter the tea room, which should have a small door that acts as an equalizer -- we all must bend to enter. Inside we take our places. We concentrate on the slow, graceful movements of the host or hostess who arranges the objects to be used in front of the brazier and tea kettle already in place.
In "The Book of Tea," Okakura writes: "Not a color to disturb the tone of the room, not a sound to mar the rhythm of things, not a gesture to obtrude on the harmony, not a word to break the unity of the surroundings, all movements to be performed simply and naturally -- such were the aims of the tea ceremony."
With prescribed movements of the hands, the hostess uses a ceremonial cloth precisely folded to wipe clean what is already spotless. Using the bamboo water dipper, a small amount of hot water is transferred to the tea bowl, rotated, emptied and wiped. In succeeding gestures, the lacquered tea caddie is opened and the beautiful finely ground apple green tea powder is measured out with a bamboo spoon, into a specially made tea bowl, deep and narrow to keep the tea hot in winter, wide and shallow to cool the tea in summer. With a bamboo dipper, hot water is added from the just bubbling kettle, and with a bamboo whisk, the mixture is whipped to a jade-colored froth. Each guest receiving the tea bowl accepts it formally, rotates it as tradition dictates, drinks the entire portion of tea served and sets the bowl down in the dignified way required. The green tea has a vegetal taste. We are convinced of its healthful properties. An authentic tea ceremony takes approximately 40 minutes, after which small candies may be offered. A tea ceremony accompanying an elaborate kaiseki meal may take up to four hours.
For the uninitiated (like myself), the slow, deliberate movements can seem tedious at first. Let's get on with it, my inner voice cried. But gradually the elegant gestures and slow, graceful shifting of the body has its effect. We relax and by the end of the ceremony feel refreshed.
Once in Tokyo, I took a city tour that ended with an abbreviated tea ceremony. It left me mystified. All these years later, what I now understand is that through tea there is an opportunity to achieve the tranquillity of mind that the East represents and I myself crave.
Ani's Asian Almonds
3 tablespoons peanut oil
2 cups whole blanched almonds
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon hot pepper flakes
1 tablespoon sugar
Heat oil in a heavy-bottomed frying pan over medium-high heat. Add almonds and sprinkle 1/2 cup sugar over them. Saute until almonds become golden brown and sugar caramelizes. Remove almonds from pan and toss in a bowl with salt, cumin, pepper flakes and the remaining sugar. Immediately spread out on foil to cool. Store in refrigerator in an airtight box or tin. Makes 2 cups.
-- Martha Stewart
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