Tea of the Sages: The Art of Sencha - Tapa blanda

A wonderful book: stylish, provocative and different from most of the other volumes of tea research currently available in Japanese and English.-- "Japanese Studies" Graham has produced a book that not only 'fills a gap, ' but is itself a lucid and elegant introduction to sencha, and indeed to the larger 'world of tea' in Japanese history that includes it and chanoyu.-- "Journal of Asian Studies" [This book's] greatest value lies in the fact that it introduces the 'rival tea ceremony' to a Western audience.... I am convinced that this pioneering study will inspire many other researchers.-- "IIAS Newsletter" Graham [provides] a valuable thematic thread which weaves together widely disparate aesthetic, intellectual, social, and economic phenomena that mediated the assimilation of Ming and Ch'ing culture in Japan.-- "Monumenta Nipponica"

The Japanese tea ceremony is generally identified with ""chanoyu"" and its bowls of whipped, powdered green tea served in surroundings influenced by the tenets of Zen Buddhism. This is a study of the alternative tea tradition of ""sencha"", at which gatherings steeped green leaf tea is prepared in an atmosphere indebted to the humanistic values of the Chinese sages and the materialistic culture of elite Chinese society during the Ming and Qing dynasties. This illustrated volume explores sencha's philosophy and arts from the 17th century to the end of the 20th century.