Tea of the Sages

The Japanese tea ceremony is usually identified with chanoyu and its bowls of whipped, powdered green tea served in surroundings influenced by the aesthetics of Zen Buddhism. Tea of the Sages introduces the philosophy and material culture of an alternate Japanese tea ceremony featuring sencha (steeped green leaf tea). Sencha initially gained popularity among Japan’s Sinophile intellectuals, who learned of it from immigrant seventeenth-century Chinese scholar-monks of the Ōbaku Zen school. They championed the beverage as an elixir consumed by ancient Chinese sages. Sencha inspired painters and poets, and fostered major advances within craft industries, especially ceramics, metalwork, and bamboo basketry. Its popularity as an everyday drink remains strong and has spread widely outside Japan. The sencha tea ceremony survives as well, with more than a hundred schools still in existence today.