Cultural History of Chanoyu:

Introduction of Tea to Japan

A very cursory overview of the history of chanoyu is as follows. During the Tang dynasty (618–907) in China, the drinking of tea (Camellia sinensis) was already an important enough aspect of the culture to inspire the writing of a three-volume book devoted to the subject called the Tea Classic, Chajing. At that time tea was pressed into bricks and thus called Brick Tea. This form of tea was brought to Japan in the 9th century where the beverage was enjoyed as a mild medicinal drink.

In the 12th century, Japanese priests went to China, then in the Southern Sung-dynasty (1127-1279), to study Zen Buddhism. One such priest, Eisai (1141–1215), brought back seeds of the tea plant and the custom of drinking green tea, called matcha in Japanese, that had been steamed, dried and finely powdered. To drink, the powder would be mixed with hot water and whisked to a froth in a small bowl. Eisai too placed great importance in the medicinal qualities of tea and wrote a volume called Records of Tea for Health, Kissa Yojoki. The tea plants that Eisai planted became known as honcha, True Tea, while those grown elsewhere in Japan from clippings or seeds were called hicha, Not (True) Tea.


Early Tea Gatherings

During the Kamakura period (1185-1333), tea competitions (tocha) were held in large meeting halls (kaisho) at which contestants tried to distinguish among varieties of honcha and hicha, and the host presented a lavish display of his expensive, imported Chinese wares (kara-mono). Beginning at this time, and continuing on into the following Muromachi period (1333-1568), rules of etiquette regarding the formal service of tea (sarei) were developed by men who served as artistic advisors (doboshu) to the military lords (daimyo) who dominated society at the time.

One such advisor was Noami (1397–1471), who served the Ashikaga shogun (chief military lord). He developed a style of tea service that was held in a smaller, more intimate room (shoin, or reading room), used a formal Chinese style tea shelf (daisu), and, importantly, was served by the host himself, not the host's tea master. Noami's service is called shoin-daisu style tea, shoin daisu no kazari.


Development of Rustic Tea (wabicha)

Of the many military lords, wealthy merchants, Zen priests and other tea masters involved in these early tea gatherings, three men are attributed with developing the gathering from a lavish form of entertainment and display to an inward practice emphasizing both aesthetic and spiritual awareness.

The three are:

• Murata Juko (1421-1502), tea master/priest who learned shoin-daisu tea from Noami, but then began to incorporate Japanese utensils with Chinese. A disciple of Zen priest Ikkyu, Juko added elements of Zen Buddhism to his tea service and also incorporated aesthetics from linked-verse poetry (renga) such as "chill" (hie) and "meager" (yase). These aesthetics denoted a vision of the world that looked beyond surface appearances, and the illusion of permanence, to underlying, inherent qualities of existence.

• Takeno Joo (1502-1555) tea master/merchant who articulated a new tea aesthetic of rustic tea, wabicha, and the unobtrusive grass-roofed hut, soan, as the location of the tea gathering.

• Sen no Rikyu (1522-1591) tea master/merchant, disciple of Joo, who resolved the shoin and soan style tea service, formalizing the philosophies, rules and procedures of rustic tea into a form most commonly known today as sado, the Way of Tea. He was teamaster to the chief military lord, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who forced him commit suicide for reasons still unclear.


Chanoyu After Rikyu

Rikyu's son, Shoan, and grandson, Sotan, worked to reestablish the Sen family. Three of Sotan's sons established three schools of tea: Koshin Sosa began Omotesenke (Fushinan); Sen Soshitsu, began Urasenke (Konnichian); and Ichio Soshu, began Mushanokojisenke (Kankyuan). Many other schools of tea also developed following the teachings of various tea masters other than the Sen family.

Through the Edo period (1600-1868) tea masters became artisans and professional teachers, and the formal drinking of tea became popular among townsfolk in general. After the opening of Japan to the West in the Meiji period (1868-1912), Sen Gengensai of Urasenke created a new form of tea service called "standing tea," ryurei, to suit the use of chairs and tables. It was also from this time that women began to study tea as a means of learning traditional culture and etiquette. At present, the number of female tea practitioners is overwhelmingly larger than male.