AH 0102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Japanese Tea Utensils, Tokonoma, Toyotomi Hideyoshi
12 May 2018
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Notes for Day 3: January 22, 2018
Art of Japanese Tea Culture Continued: Aesthetics, Culture and History
• Goals for today
o Understand the basics of the Japanese tea ceremony (settings, etiquette, utensils,
vocabulary)
o Understand the history of tea drinking and tea culture in Japan
o Understand tea’s cross-cultural links: China, Japan, Korea
• “Tea (chanoyu) is nothing but lighting a fire, boiling water, making tea, and drinking it.”
- Sen no Rikyu
̄
• History of Tea:
o Tea enters Japan from China; not grown in Japan; it was used for medicinal
purposes by both the elites and the monks
o Karamono: items from China and Korea that were imported to Japan by way of
monks and merchants in port cities
o 19th century Japan opens to the west (United States and Europe); tea ceremony
dies out
o 20th century: tea ceremony is revitalized by upper middle class women of Japan
• More on Tea Gardens:
o Elements included:
▪ Water basins
▪ Stone pathways
▪ Bamboo everywhere including in the architecture of the house
o Everything appears as if it had been built by nature
o Contains 2 gates:
▪ One for entry upon the garden from the street
▪ Another midway up the garden upon entry to the main lot of the house
o The tea houses/huts were very simple and rustic
▪ They had covered windows in order to allow in as little natural light as
possible
▪ The houses were even given poetic names just like the tea utensils
• Elements of Tea Huts:
o The tokonoma: central piece of the tea hut; contains a painting or calligraphy, a
flower; acts as a shrine; guests must respect the Tokonoma by bowing down to it
upon entering the hut
o Contains a small kitchen where the host works to prepare the tea and snacks
o Contains a hearth, which is the boiler containing the hot water needed for tea (can
be found in the center of the room located in a ditch in the ground during the
winter or at the far off corner of the room above ground during the summer; used
for warmth during the winter)
o Guests must replace their shoes with sandals upon entering the house as a sign of
respect to the host
• Tokonoma example picture 1:
o Contains a large ink painting with calligraphy
o Is found in the center of the room
o A flower is off to the side and is placed in a hanging vase
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