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External source: "Japanese Tea Culture." YouTube, uploaded by Visit Kanazawa Official, 30 March 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBwLaJp7CG0.

In the first chapter of Tea of the Sages: The Art of Sencha, author Patricia Graham explores how the popularization of tea and its transmission from China to Japan led to developing popular art forms. On the art of tea bowls, she says: "The most distinctive and popular of the new styles created in response to whipped tea's popularity was the black-glazed Jian ware tea bowl (J: temmoku) from Fujian." In "Japanese Tea Culture," we see the significance of the tea bowl in the Japanese ceremony: it is a symbol for the moment of the ceremony, holding memories of the host, the art, and the flavor of the tea. Each bowl is carefully hand crafted, unique, and memorable. Does the significance of the tea bowl in both China and Japan reflect that the art of bowls traveled from Fujian to Japan, or did Japan develop their own culture surrounding the creation and reverence for tea bowls?

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External source: "How to Drink Tea Like People from Tang Dynasty?" YouTube, uploaded by 顾小思, 3 June 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tvRKGQPo64

Through the various readings this week including the work of Lu Yu and Benn's examinations of Buddhist tea culture and other tea poetry, I feel very informed on the cultural value of tea and its artistic significance. However, I am curious about the presence of a woman in this external YouTube source and how women overall interacted with the tea culture of the Tang Dynasty. The literati culture of the time was primarily male, meaning that the poets writing about tea were men, and the Buddhist monks that also helped popularize the beverage were male. Benn's "Tea Poetry in Tang China" mentions a poem "Spoiled Daughters" in which two young women eagerly wait for tea (73), and the video briefly shows a piece of art seeming to depict women drinking tea together. Were women involved in the making and drinking of tea in sophisticated or religious circles? Is there more poetry or art from this time period that might portray how involved women were in the tea ceremony?

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How to Drink Tea Like People from Tang Dynasty?

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External source: "'Dian Cha': The art of tea preparation in the Song Dynasty." YouTube, uploaded by CGTN, 18 July 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zy92OqcKyGM

The tea drinking portrayed in the external source seems very ritualized, from the elegant setting to the custom of 7 alternating pours between whisking and using the pointing kettle. In Benn's chapter on the Song Dynasty, he describes tea as both a ritual and interpersonal practice, stating that "tea was consumed in everyday situations, as well as in specialized refined gatherings of the elite that focused on pleasure." The ritual customs portrayed in the video appear and highly specific to me, and I am curious if this was a standard of literati class or if you would also see such standardized tea preparation practice in the "everyday situations" Benn references.

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'Dian Cha': The art of tea preparation in the Song Dynasty

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External source: "'An Invitation to Chanoyu' #4 'The Tea Gathering : Spirit and Form.' YouTube, uploaded by 表千家北山会館 Omotesenke Kitayama Kaikan, 15 June 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cim2WINk_fk

This external source video was very inspiring and beautiful to me! It reminded me of the passage which details a standard Chanoyu ritual in Sen's The Japanese Way of Tea: "After a greeting from the host comes the lighting of the charcoal, followed immediately by the serving of a kaiseki meal. When the

simple meal is complete, the host finally serves a tea confection, where-

upon the guests leave the tea room for a brief break... [etc.]" (83). I enjoyed seeing these motions in the video which made them more logical and easy to picture in my mind as I reread the passage. I also found myself thinking about tea culture in my own life, because although the video portrayed the structured Chanoyu ritual, it also simultaneously emphasized the importance of tea as a shared once-in-a-lifetime experience between host and guest, which is something very familiar to my life even though I have never formally practiced Chanoyu. I'm very interested in blending the casual way myself and my family share tea with these principals from the Chanoyu ceremony!

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'An Invitation to Chanoyu' #4 'The Tea Gathering : Spirit and Form'

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External source: "Icheon Master Hand." YouTube, uploaded by AMOCA, 23 Oct 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDmBtNrC5Lc

Nam-lin Hur's “Korean Tea Bowls (Kōrai chawan) and Japanese Wabicha: A Story of Acculturation in Premodern Northeast Asia" explains the origins of Korean pottery in Japanese cultural use, and one of the things which interested me most was that the first Korean pottery in Japan was likely everyday commercial wares that were ultimately prized for their imperfection. The author writes that "Korean potters produced ordinary ceramic bowls for domestic markets but that some of these... were brought to Japan." Thus the bowls that created such a stir in Japan were only ordinary in Korea. Watching the video of Korean master potters at work, it's easy to see how this beautiful technique differs so greatly from the preferred rustic style in Japan. It marks a very interesting cultural divide that the Japanese high society placed less value on the incredible craftsmanship of the Korean masters' work and instead made the "everyday" objects extraordinarily valuable. Both styles are beautiful and I think it's particularly amazing to see the perfection achieved in the Korean work shown in the video!

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External Source: "[Exploring Korean Literature] Tea culture in Literature Korean Poetry about Tea." YouTube, uploaded by Arirang TV, 26 Nov 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2iRkp2QAMQ

This video's insight into how literati engaged with tea was very intriguing! I liked it because it painted a portrait of characters similar to Hanjae Yi Mok, the writer of the Rhapsody to Tea which we read. The video describes how "for most literary people... daily life revolved around tea drinking and composing poetry." This phenomenon of a class of wealthy peoples with so much time on their hands that they need only sit around, consume tea, and then write poetry about it created a unique genre of works such as the Rhapsody to Tea. Hanjae Yi Mok was in a privileged position to write the Rhapsody in his lifetime, yet he also lived a turbulent short life met with violence. The high and intense stakes of the literati class and the tea culture at this time feel almost incomprehensible now in the modern world, but seems to have been a fact of life to this class in their time period.

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[Exploring Korean Literature] Tea culture in Literature Korean Poetry about Tea

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External source: "Classical Gardens of Suzho." YouTube, uploaded by Asian Art Museum, 18 May 2009, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87QlGDfXh54

I really liked this video's descriptions of the Chinese gardens' appealing layout, such as the windows which "help lure the visitor" through the different segments of the garden. It recalled what our lecturer described on Friday regarding the gardens' intrigue and uncertain designs. I love connotations behind the word "lure" because it makes the gardens feel so enticing and mysterious, like an adventurous journey despite the fact that they're very controlled environments. I like how the gardens crafted this illusion so effectively and to me it seems very representative of the culture at the time which prized the intellectual experience of adventure but went about creating it in safe and aesthetically designed spaces.

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This video explores the classical gardens of Suzhou, which are considered to be some of the most beautiful gardens in China.

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External source: "Japanese Tea Ceremony Explained - Matcha Tea Ceremony Utensils, Procedure and more!" YouTube, uploaded by Nioteas TV, 3 November 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD7qUfSOGOE

I drew a connection between this week's external video source and the Sadler reading on Chanoyu which illustrates a diagram of tea bowl styles. The illustration not only contained tea bowls that resembled one shown in the "Utensils" segment of the video, but was accompanied by text contrasting large and small tea bowls and "deep" vs. "shallow," explaining the shallow bowls were used in summer and deep in winter. The video explains that tea bowls with deeper sides were practical for whisking matcha as they did not spill easily, and that the sides were preheated to maintain the tea's heat. The shallow vs. deep comparison of tea bowls in the text made me wonder if deeper tea bowls might retain their pre-heating longer, which could be a reason that they're extra popular in winter. If not, what informed such a tradition?

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Japanese Tea Ceremony Explained - Matcha Tea Ceremony Utensils, Procedure and more!

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External source: Mokubei, Aoki. Brewing Tea in the Shade of Trees, 1820s. The Met, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/845160

This beautiful illustration reminded me of the six-panel screen included in Graham's exploration of sencha (p. 86). Although they're made in different mediums and produced over 60 years apart from one another, I found that both art pieces evoked a similar atmosphere with their raw, winding depictions of the natural world and their inclusions of trees, mountains, and rivers. I've observed that these elements appear across a lot of sencha-related art and it feels that they're thematically entwined with the tea's associated with free thought and connection with nature. I'm curious about the significance of the manmade structures in the panels from Graham's text, whereas the only impression of humans in Mokubei's art seems to be a pathway. What did these constructed buildings or other structures signify when they're placed in art that so clearly foregrounds nature and unpredictability?

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Aoki Mokubei | Brewing Tea in the Shade of Trees | Japan | Edo period (1615–1868) | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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Signature: (upper right) Mokubei 木米; Artist’s seal: Mokubei 木米

Marking: Box inscription: Rōbei Ryokuin senmei ga sansui shinpin 聾米緑陰煎茗画山水神品 (“Brewing Masterpiece of a landscape by Rōbei [Mokubei])

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External Source: Richardson, Bruce. "Frank Lloyd Wright and The Book of Tea." The Tea Maestro, WordPress, 26 Feb 2023. https://theteamaestro.com/2023/02/26/frank-lloyd-wright-and-the-book-of-tea/.

This article was very appealing to me as I am a big admirer of Frank Lloyd Wright's architectural and design work! While reading the Book of Tea passages, I noted its emphasis on the intersections of Eastern and Western philosophy and how those ideas informed the differences in cultures' use of tea. The book approaches these schools of thought from a Japanese perspective. Upon reading this article and being familiar with F.L.W.'s work, I feel as though he approaches architecture in a similar way to the Book of Tea's angle on East and West, except from a Western perspective rather than a Japanese one - he is clearly interested in both Western and Eastern design principles and finds their intersections in creating his unique designs. This is definitely a fresh way that I will look at Wright houses, and helps me recognize elements that I'm familiar with through his designs in the Chanoyu tea rooms where they originated.

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Frank Lloyd Wright and The Book of Tea – The Tea Maestro

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Frank Lloyd Wright was given a copy of The Book of Tea by the Japanese ambassador to the United States. One quote from Okakura Kakuzo’s book influenced the way he interpreted space within his buildings.