Okakura and the Spirit of Tea

12/12/18 • 31 min

We're getting a bit contemplative this time of year here at Talking Tea, as the weather turns cooler and our bodies and minds begin to turn inward. So this December we're offering two episodes exploring the spirit of tea as reflected in chado, the Japanese way of tea. To kick off this two-part series we're looking at the life, work and influence of Kakuzo Okakura, best known for his modern classic The Book of Tea.

As some of you may know, Talking Tea host Ken Cohen narrated and produced an audiobook edition of Okakura's The Book of Tea in 2015. Today Ken is chatting via Skype with Bruce Richardson, of Elmwood Inn Fine Teas and its publishing arm Benjamin Press. Bruce wrote and published an extensive and scholarly intro to the print version of The Book of Tea, and Bruce shares a bit of his own tea journey with us and tells us how he was first drawn to this text. We discuss Okakura's early life in Japan and his exposure to the West, the origins of The Book of Tea and its connection with Okakura's work at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and Okakura's influence on iconic American art collector Isabella Stewart Gardner, American artist Georgia O'Keefe and the design principles of Frank Lloyd Wright. Bruce chats with Ken about Okakura's perspectives on the connections between tea, art, and Zen, and Bruce shares his own perspectives, influenced by Okakura, on tea as an adventure and a creative path, on the importance of the space within and why the way of tea is the way of life.

Bruce Richardson's illustrated print edition of The Book of Tea, with his introduction, is available through Elmwood Inn Fine Teas or though Amazon.

Ken Cohen's audiobook edition of The Book of Tea, published by Spoken Realms, is available at Audible.com , Amazon and iTunes.

Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.

more about Talking Tea

The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.

This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.

Bruce Richardson's illustrated print edition of The Book of Tea, with his introduction, is available through Elmwood Inn Fine Teas or though Amazon.

Ken Cohen's audiobook edition of The Book of Tea, published by Spoken Realms, is available at Audible.com , Amazon and iTunes.

Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.

more about Talking Tea

The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.

Previous Episode

Tea Cocktail Experiments

Today on Talking Tea we're doing something a little different from our usual format. A few weeks back we were invited by the folks at Tea Dealers and the 29b Tea House (featured in our prior episode Ambassadors of Tea) to join them in conversation at an evening of tea and alcohol experiments they were planning and record the event for Talking Tea. We did just that, and we're pleased to bring you the event as a Talking Tea episode.

We join Andreas Vagelatos and Graham Pirtle of Tea Dealers, Jesse Ferguson of Interboro Spirits & Ales and a crowd of about 30 guests at New York's Hotel on Rivington for this evening exploring new approaches to tea and mixology. Graham, along with Stefen Ramirez of Tea Dealers, had come up with three innovative cocktails for this event, and Graham chats with us about their unique approach to tea in mixology, borrowing pairing ideas from the culinary world, and the challenges of leveraging the flavors and textures of the teas and the other ingredients in the drinks. We also chat with Graham about the long history of tea in cocktails and its current revival.

The cocktails used three teas - matcha, hojicha and rou gui - and as Andreas guides us through the tastings he talks with us about each of these teas and their use in the cocktails, the philosophy behind 29b's tea cocktail programs and the similarities between the nomenclature, flavors and other sensory experiences in tea, wine and spirits. Jesse chats with us throughout the evening about Interboro's spirits and how they interact with the other ingredients of the cocktails, and we discuss the overall flavor profiles and sensations resulting from the pairings and the various flavor components in each of the drinks. Andreas and Graham point out how the flavors and aromas of tea, spirits and mixed drinks can sometimes be nostalgic, and how Tea Dealers crafted these cocktails not only to bring out excellent results in flavor, aroma and sensation, but also to highlight some of the nostalgic and evocative qualities of the teas and the spirits. The episode also includes comments and questions from the guests at the event.

More info on Interboro is at its website interboro.nyc and at its Instagram feed.

Info on Tea Dealers and 29b is at tea-dealers.com/pages/29b and Instagram feed.

For info on the Hotel on Rivington, visit hotelonrivington.com.

Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.

more about Talking Tea

The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.

Next Episode

Chabana: Flowers for Tea

As December comes to a close and winter deepens here in the northern hemisphere, we're continuing our turn inward as we conclude our two-part series on the spirit of tea as reflected in chado, the Japanese way of tea. Today we're focusing on chabana, the art of flowers so integral to Japanese tea ceremony.

To chat with us about chabana we're welcoming back Drew Hanson, an instructor in the Urasenke school of chado and founder/owner of the Boukakuan Japanese Tea House in New Jersey. (You may remember Drew from an earlier chado-related Talking Tea episode, Tea, Heart to Heart.) We're with Drew in the tea room at Boukakuan, and Drew talks with us about the guiding principles of chabana and how the flowers in the tea room relate to us as humans, mirroring our own constant state of transition and transience. Drew gives us specific guidance on how to choose and present flowers for tea, and we discuss the history of chabana and its relationship to Buddhism in Japan. We chat about bringing nature into the tea room in a very focused way, relating the flowers and their container to the season and the differences between chabana and Western traditions of flower arranging so vividly pointed out in Kakuzo Okakura's The Book of Tea.

For more info on the Boukakuan Japanese Tea House, including info on Japanese tea ceremony classes and demonstrations, go to the Boukakuan website at njgreentea.com.

Ken Cohen's audiobook edition of Kakuzo Okakura's The Book of Tea, published by Spoken Realms, is available at Audible.com , Amazon and iTunes.

Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.

more about Talking Tea

The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.