PublishedPenguin Classics, November 2010 |
ISBN9780141191843 |
FormatSoftcover, 112 pages |
Dimensions19.8cm × 12.9cm × 0.6cm |
First time in Penguin Classics for this Japanese work dedicated to the art of drinking tea - and much more - introduced by Christopher Benfey
For a generation adjusting painfully to the demands of a modern industrial and commercial society, Asia came to represent an alternative vision of the good life- aesthetically austere, socially aristocratic, and imbued with spirituality. The Book of Tea was originally written in English and sought to address the inchoate yearnings of disaffected Westerners. In a flash of inspiration, Okakura saw that the formal tea party as practiced in New England was a distant cousin of the Japanese tea ceremony, and that East and West had thus "met in the tea-cup."
