The Book of Tea by Okakura Kakuzo

This classic work by Okakura Kakuzo has inspired many generations of readers by illuminating the underlying spirit and message of the venerable Japanese tea masters. The Book of Tea doesn't focus on the tea ceremony itself, but rather on the Zen Buddhist philosophy behind it. Kakuzo teaches us to cultivate an everyday awareness of the beauty in all the common things around us. His powerful message is even more relevant today than when he wrote this book, and it serves as a wonderful introduction to the aesthetics of Japanese culture. This edition has a new foreword by Andrew Juniper, who runs the Wabi-Sabi Art Gallery in West Sussex, England, and an introduction by Liza Dalby, the first American woman to be fully trained as a geisha in Japan in the 1970's. In 1906, in turn-of-the-century Boston, a small, esoteric book about tea was written with the intention of being read aloud in the famous salon of Isabella Stewart Gardner—Boston's most notorious socialite. It was authored by Okakur