About Chado
Introduction
Brief Tea Drinking History in Japan
Sen Rikyu
The Urasenke Tradition
Tea, at first, was considered a medicine. Its legendary healing properties combined with an energetic boost have made tea the most popular beverage in the world, second only to water. Originally, it came from the mountains of southeast Asia and became widely enjoyed in China during the Tang dynasty (618-907) by mixing flavorings, such as ginger or salt, with shavings from a pressed brick of tea leaves. Although tea was introduced to Japan during this time, it was confined only to the aristocracy and Buddhist ceremonies.
During the Sung dynasty (1127-1280), the green tea leaves were steamed soon after picking, dried, ground into a fine powder and whisked together with hot water. This powdered green tea, "matcha" in Japanese, was brought to Japan by Eisai (1141-1215), founder of the Rinzai sect of Zen Buddhism, upon his return from study in China. This time, tea became a part of everyday life in Zen monasteries, and was widely enjoyed by the court nobles as well as the warrior class.
Over the next 300 years, the wealthier Japanese appreciated matcha in the company of poetry composing sessions, liberal consumption of sake, and the display of valuable antique Chinese tea utensils. Such tea gatherings were boisterous affairs, but much of the Japanese sense of beauty we appreciate today is rooted in these gatherings.
Some one hundred years of refinement intertwined the ceremonial tea of the Zen temples and the social teas of the aristocracy. Extravagance gave way to simple, quiet offerings, and the rigid forms of tea making began to allow for heart-felt expression. This process of refinement culminated with one tea master, who in the span of his lifetime fully realized this aesthetic as a way of life and established Chado as a means to convert life itself into a work of art. His name was Sen Rikyu (1522-1591).