Kakuzo Okakura

The Book of Tea Kakuzo Okakura

At the turn of the 20th century, in Boston, a small esoteric book about tea was written with the intention of being read aloud in the famous salon of Isabella Gardner. It was authored by Okakura Kakuzo, a Japanese philosopher, art expert, and curator. Little known at the time, Kakuzo would emerge as one of the great thinkers of the early 20th century, a genius who was insightful, witty and greatly responsible for bridging Western and Eastern cultures. Nearly a century later, Kakuzo's book of tea is still beloved the world over. The Book of Tea is a delightful cup of enlightenment from a man far ahead of his time. Tea began as a medicine and grew into a beverage. In China, in the eighth century, it entered the realm of poetry as one of the polite amusements. The fifteenth century saw Japan ennoble it into a religion of aestheticism-Teaism. Teaism is a cult founded on the adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday existence.