「The long isolation of Japan from the rest of the world, so conductive to introspection, has been highly favourable to the development of Teaism. Our home and habits, costume and cuisine, porcelain, lacquer, painting-our very literature-all have been subject to its influence. No student of Japanese culture could ever ignore its presence. It has permeated the elegance of noble boudoirs, and entered the abode of the humble. Our peasants have learned to arrange flowers, our meanest labourer to offer his saturation to the rocks and waters. In our common parlance we speak of the man "with no tea" in him, when he is insusceptible to the serio-comic interests of the personal drama. Again we stigmatise the untamed aesthete who, regardless of the mundance tragedys, runs riot in the springtide of emancipated emotions, as one "with too much tea" in him.」
"The Book of Tea"(chales E.Tuttle Co.,Rutland,Vermont-Tokyo,Japan) From chapter;The Cup of Humanity pp.4-5
As you know, tea cult is the style of life and living in everyday exisistence of Japanese.The fact mean to understand Japan and/or Japanese culture, you have to know the way of tea drinking and tea cult in daily and/or social existence of Japanese.
Nowaday, majority of the people, beyond poor or rich,are not concern with tea cult. Yet, you will find the effect of tea related habits and/or behavior in Japanese.
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「Tea began as a medicine and grew into a beverage. In China, in the eighth century,it entered the realm of poety 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. It inculcates purity and harmony, the mystery of mutual charity, the romanticism of the social order. It is essentially a worship of the Imperfect, as it is a tender attempt to accomplish something possible in this impossible thing we know as life.」
