tea ceremony

Kyle Wittington is a dedicated chajin (tea person) with wide-ranging skills and interests in tea ceremony and practice. He not only makes tea, but also creates tea related textiles, stages public tea events and even hosts a tea reading group online. For today’s interview, we enjoyed […]

Congratulations! You’re about to attend your first Japanese tea ceremony. Or, maybe it has simply been a long time since you’ve been to a ceremony, and a few reminders regarding basic tearoom protocol would be useful? Depending on the context, the ceremony you attend could be […]

Steeped in years of history, a Japanese tea ceremony holds its stance as both a traditional and ceremonial way of life amongst the Japanese people.  An art itself and much highly appreciated in their culture, a tea ceremony is also a way of not only just […]

Practicing the tea ceremony gave me the opportunity not only to deepen my understanding of the ritual, but simultaneously to expand my knowledge into other areas of Japanese culture because of its relation to the practice. In essence, I have come to feel that the tea ceremony is a microcosm of Japanese culture as a whole.

Far more than just a way to enjoy delicious matcha tea and sweets, the Japanese tea ceremony is a tradition that goes back to the ninth century. The origins of the ceremony have roots in Zen Buddism, a religious practice introduced from China.