KJ
71 Online Review
Two
Leaves and a Bud: The Books of Tea
Reviews by Lauren W. Deutsch
The Book of Tea
by Okakura Kakuzo
1905, Various current sources, including (free)
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/769
Liquid Jade: The Story of Tea from East to West
by Beatrice Hohenegger
2006, St. Martin’s Press, New York
Books
on, about and of tea are as many and varied as the infusion of two leafs
and a bud of camellia sinensis into a beverage. To that end, I offer
the same configuration of tea tomes in review: a classic and a new volume.
The “bud” has yet to be written.
Spirituality: Okakura’s Opus
The Book of Tea, by Okakura Kakuzô (Tenshin) (1862–1913),
is perhaps the best known single volume purportedly about tea written
and published in English. I never knew anyone who drank tea, except
iced tea in the summer. Decades before I cared about anything remotely
Asian, I noticed the popularity of mini versions of this book in suburban
gift shops (think Hummel porcelain collectable figurines, crystal bud
vases, greeting cards, etc.). Sibling topics such as “Ode on a
Grecian Urn” and “Love Poems for Mother” always could
be found as last minute impulse items near the cash register. One could
surmise that if the gift recipient’s knick-knack shelves were
full, one of these tiny, tastefully appropriate literary gifts could
get one off the hook.
By all accounts Okakura, was a highly-educated expert on the arts and
cultures of Japan, as well as those of China and India. “The origins
of Okakura’s Book of Tea” are disputed. Some scholars
believe it was conceived at Okakura’s summer home in Japan in
1905. Others believe it grew out of a set of discarded notes from a
lecture series delivered to a group of women at Fenway Court.”1
Yet another noted the lecture was ostensibly to clarify Japan’s
position in the Russo-Japanese War2.
It was published posthumously in 1913 and translated into Japanese in
1929. According to the Izura Bijitsukan, the Tenshin Museum in Ibaraki
Prefecture, Japan, the title of the Japanese translation of the book
is Cha no Hon, literally tea’s book.
These were exciting, chaotic, confusing and yet “romantic”
times, where cultural “purity” often took a back seat to
both colonial and indigenous impulses to conjure up “traditions”
and to take advantage of misinterpretations to support specific personal
or political agendas. Commodification of the ethereal and consumption
of artifacts for the purpose of boosting one’s social status was
equally rampant on both “sides” of the “pond”:
hunger for things exotically Eastern in the West countered the rush
to Western-style modernity in the East.
Okakura was well suited for the role of arbiter, or as that Texas tongue-twister,
the not-soon-enough-to-be ex-president of the USA G.W. Bush would say,
“the explainer”. He played a key role in fashioning the
prism through which the “orientalization of Asia was
constructed.”3 His
presence in Boston, Massachusetts was as a consequence of the flood
of cultural material, especially “fine” arts, that was leaking
by from Japan and China into the USA by shiploads.
At the same time he conceived of an art movement that combined Eastern
and Western sensibilities, he employed tea to establish and solidify
his critical relationship with the “Queen of Boston”, Mrs.
Jack (Isabella Stuart Gardner), the “millionaire Bohemienne”4
and doyenne of the abovementioned Fenway Court.. Regardless of his specific
literary capacities, his aim was more universal than crafting an owner’s
manual to accompany the set of utensils for “stirred tea”
that he gifted Mrs. Gardner. “Humanity has so far met in the tea-cup”
he said, “... we await the great Avatar. Meanwhile, let us have
a sip of tea.” The book / lecture does cover much of the essential
spirit of the legacy of chado deeply set within Japanese culture.
It has been said that the man was completely capable of living with
one mind fully in two worlds, that he could look at the East from the
West and vice versa. And this is one of the criticisms of The Book
of Tea: that it was written from that Western hemisphere of his
brain. Despite the literal presentation of all those “teas”:
spirituality, authenticity, universality, Japanese propriety, etc.,
he was really positing that “The East and West, like two dragons
tossed in a sea of ferment, in vain strive to regain the jewel of life.”
5
His metaphor was so seamless that even my fellow but Japan-born chajins
have a hard time discussing it. They likewise have extreme difficulty
understanding why anyone not Japanese would invest over two decades
to learn the art form. When I ask them why they were so dedicated, it
is merely because they are Japanese.
Sustainability: Hohenegger’s Liquid Jade
The second “leaf” of the pick is not merely the finger pointing
at the plant, but the plant itself -- yes, camellia sinensis in glorious
profusion – bursting anecdotes about ancestors, encompassing provenance
to politics and philosophies and, most importantly, asks pointed question
about the sustainability of the product and those whose livelihoods
are dependent upon it.
In Liquid Jade: The Story of Tea from East to West (2006, St.
Martin’s Press, New York), author / historian Beatrice Hohenegger
has packed an enormous amount of information into a trim, enjoyable
read. She charts the complexities of intrigue, trade and substance of
that precious, enigmatic “elixir and commodity” from the
depths of East Asia through the West of present day. “The more
I researched historical events, the more the story of tea became the
story of traumatic encounter and clash of cultures between East and
West,” she states.
One enjoys rambling through the compact account, jumping from the mythic
accounts of the discovery of the East’s renown proprietary medicinal
plant and seemingly magical properties, its adoption into and impact
upon well-established cultural patterns and agencies. From there, tea
joins other “exotic” prizes of the East, such as opium,
porcelain, silk and spices in the manifests of Western traders. Her
book offers “curiosities, obscurities, misnomers and facts”,
from botany to various twists and turns of the leaf as it makes it way
from bush to bag and beyond. From China everywhere else, Hohenegger
furnishes historical anecdotes from numerous sources as well as period
black / white engravings related to tea. It is the perfect counterpoint
to a gathering of friends and the solitude of private meditation. Whether
East or West or in between, this simple, singular plant has kept true
to its promises most patiently.
Unlike other recent tea-themed books that are content to report a contemporary
surge in popularity of the beverage and pin varietals to the world map,
Hohenegger puts forth for readers’ consideration how contemporary
multinational corporations have taken over where colonial powers left
off, contributing to the impoverished conditions of both the tea-growing
soil and its caretaking indigenous population. She poses possibilities
of organic farming, fair-trade practices, including a detailed account
of how a Canadian woman has taken on tribal politics in the fertile
Upper Assam region of India – replete with racketeering, extortion
and murders – to help a small, indigenous tea-growing clan, the
Singpho, to not only learn to grow their tea in sustainable ways for
the earth, but also to control the entire vertical aspect of production,
from field to processing for export. “The balance to be achieved
among the various social, economic and cultural components is fragile.”
Through the author’s farsightedness, tea joins coffee, chocolate
and other ancient foodstuffs on the list of the earth’s most precious
bounty.
1
Breslow, Rebecca G. “Humanity in a Tea-cup: Isabella Stewart Gardner
and Okakura Kakuzo”, Chanoyu Quarterly No. 85, Urasenke
Foundation, Kyoto, 1996.
2 Inaga, Shigemi “Reconsidering Okakura Tenshin
as the Inventor of Oriental Art History” Abstracts of the
1999 Association of Asian Studies Annual Meeting, Boston 1999 http://www.aasianst.org/absts/1999abst/japan/j-toc.htm
3 Nothelfer, Frank G., “Rethinking Okakura Tenshin”
Abstracts of the 1999 Association of Asian Studies Annual Meeting
ibid.
4 Breslow, ibid
5 Okakura, Kakuzo (Tehshin), The Book of Tea
Copyright
held by the author
Back to Selections
Subscriptions
