Originally written to be read aloud by the author at Isabella Stewart Gardner's famous salon, The Book of Tea brings alive the spirit of the Japanese Tea Masters. It focuses not on the Tea Cerimony itself, but rather on the Japanese Zen Buddhist thought and practice which created the Mind of Tea and the Masters who embodied this spirit. Okakura'a considerablecharisma and erudition shine, dazzling even after a century, as he introduces his audience to the aesthetic and philosophy of Japan.
Writing at the time when Japan was rejecting its own traditions in a frenzy colonization, Okakura was instrumental in the preservation not just of masterpieces of Japanese art, but of a way of living that gives birth to them. Writing of art appreciation in The Book of Tea, he says, "It is to be deplored that so few of us really takes pains to study the moods of the maters and thus often miss the rich repast of beauty spread before our very eyes." Okakura teaches us to listen to the language of art, inviting us to drink deeply from "The Cup of Humanity".
