In Japan, in the late 1500's, "rustic huts" (soan) were created as places where tea masters and their guests could gather to share a simple bowl of whisked, powdered green tea (matcha) as part of artistic gatherings known as chanoyu, a word that simply means "hot water for tea." These rustic teahouses developed into delicate, refined structures made of simple, natural materials approached through subdued gardens that elicited the feel of a mossy forest.
Time-slip to Spring 2003. Forty students have gathered to take part in the Teahouse Project at Cornell University, a seminar run by Marc P. Keane, garden designer from, and 18 year resident of, Kyoto, Japan. Keane is visiting Cornell for a year as the Halprin Fellow in the department of landscape architecture. The focus of the project is to study the early development of chanoyu culture, architecture, and gardens, and to build an experimental teahouse and tea garden outside the Johnson Museum.
The teahouse and garden are being made by the students almost entirely from natural materials that they are collecting from forests, fields, and farms around Lake Cayuga. Those materials include maple saplings, reeds, the stems of willows and red-twig dogwoods, barn-boards, river pebbles, and field stones. It will be completed in time for a special event on May 17th at the Johnson Museum at which Chinese, Korean, and Japanese tea will be served by three teamasters.