The Book of Tea(茶书)

VIP免费

2024-12-26 0 0 186.47KB 50 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

The Book of Tea

by Kakuzo Okakura

The Book of Tea

I. The Cup of Humanity

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. 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.

The Philosophy of Tea is not mere aestheticism in the ordinary

acceptance of the term, for it expresses conjointly with ethics and religion

our whole point of view about man and nature. It is hygiene, for it

enforces cleanliness; it is economics, for it shows comfort in simplicity

rather than in the complex and costly; it is moral geometry, inasmuch as it

defines our sense of proportion to the universe. It represents the true

spirit of Eastern democracy by making all its votaries aristocrats in taste.

The long isolation of Japan from the rest of the world, so conducive 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

salutation 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 mundane tragedy, runs riot in the

springtide of emancipated emotions, as one "with too much tea" in him.

The outsider may indeed wonder at this seeming much ado about

nothing. What a tempest in a tea-cup! he will say. But when we consider

how small after all the cup of human enjoyment is, how soon overflowed

The Book of Tea

with tears, how easily drained to the dregs in our quenchless thirst for

infinity, we shall not blame ourselves for making so much of the tea-cup.

Mankind has done worse. In the worship of Bacchus, we have

sacrificed too freely; and we have even transfigured the gory image of

Mars. Why not consecrate ourselves to the queen of the Camelias, and

revel in the warm stream of sympathy that flows from her altar? In the

liquid amber within the ivory-porcelain, the initiated may touch the sweet

reticence of Confucius, the piquancy of Laotse, and the ethereal aroma

of Sakyamuni himself.

Those who cannot feel the littleness of great things in themselves are

apt to overlook the greatness of little things in others. The average

Westerner, in his sleek complacency, will see in the tea ceremony but

another instance of the thousand and one oddities which constitute the

quaintness and childishness of the East to him. He was wont to regard

Japan as barbarous while she indulged in the gentle arts of peace: he

calls her civilised since she began to commit wholesale slaughter on

Manchurian battlefields. Much comment has been given lately to the

Code of the Samurai, --the Art of Death which makes our soldiers exult in

self- sacrifice; but scarcely any attention has been drawn to Teaism, which

represents so much of our Art of Life. Fain would we remain barbarians,

if our claim to civilisation were to be based on the gruesome glory of war.

Fain would we await the time when due respect shall be paid to our art and

ideals.

When will the West understand, or try to understand, the East? We

Asiatics are often appalled by the curious web of facts and fancies which

has been woven concerning us. We are pictured as living on the perfume

of the lotus, if not on mice and cockroaches. It is either impotent

fanaticism or else abject voluptuousness. Indian spirituality has been

derided as ignorance, Chinese sobriety as stupidity, Japanese patriotism as

the result of fatalism. It has been said that we are less sensible to pain

and wounds on account of the callousness of our nervous organisation!

Why not amuse yourselves at our expense? Asia returns the

compliment. There would be further food for merriment if you were to

know all that we have imagined and written about you. All the

The Book of Tea

glamour of the perspective is there, all the unconscious homage of wonder,

all the silent resentment of the new and undefined. You have been

loaded with virtues too refined to be envied, and accused of crimes too

picturesque to be condemned. Our writers in the past--the wise men who

knew--informed us that you had bushy tails somewhere hidden in your

garments, and often dined off a fricassee of newborn babes! Nay, we had

something worse against you: we used to think you the most impracticable

people on the earth, for you were said to preach what you never practiced.

Such misconceptions are fast vanishing amongst us. Commerce has

forced the European tongues on many an Eastern port. Asiatic youths are

flocking to Western colleges for the equipment of modern education.

Our insight does not penetrate your culture deeply, but at least we are

willing to learn. Some of my compatriots have adopted too much of

your customs and too much of your etiquette, in the delusion that the

acquisition of stiff collars and tall silk hats comprised the attainment of

your civilisation. Pathetic and deplorable as such affectations are, they

evince our willingness to approach the West on our knees. Unfortunately

the Western attitude is unfavourable to the understanding of the East.

The Christian missionary goes to impart, but not to receive. Your

information is based on the meagre translations of our immense literature,

if not on the unreliable anecdotes of passing travellers. It is rarely that

the chivalrous pen of a Lafcadio Hearn or that of the author of "The Web

of Indian Life" enlivens the Oriental darkness with the torch of our own

sentiments.

Perhaps I betray my own ignorance of the Tea Cult by being so

outspoken. Its very spirit of politeness exacts that you say what you are

expected to say, and no more. But I am not to be a polite Teaist. So

much harm has been done already by the mutual misunderstanding of the

New World and the Old, that one need not apologise for contributing his

tithe to the furtherance of a better understanding. The beginning of the

twentieth century would have been spared the spectacle of sanguinary

warfare if Russia had condescended to know Japan better. What dire

consequences to humanity lie in the contemptuous ignoring of Eastern

problems! European imperialism, which does not disdain to raise the

The Book of Tea

absurd cry of the Yellow Peril, fails to realise that Asia may also awaken to

the cruel sense of the White Disaster. You may laugh at us for having

"too much tea," but may we not suspect that you of the West have "no tea"

in your constitution?

Let us stop the continents from hurling epigrams at each other, and

be sadder if not wiser by the mutual gain of half a hemisphere. We have

developed along different lines, but there is no reason why one should

not supplement the other. You have gained expansion at the cost of

restlessness; we have created a harmony which is weak against aggression.

Will you believe it?--the East is better off in some respects than the West!

Strangely enough humanity has so far met in the tea-cup. It is the only

Asiatic ceremonial which commands universal esteem. The white man

has scoffed at our religion and our morals, but has accepted the brown

beverage without hesitation. The afternoon tea is now an important

function in Western society. In the delicate clatter of trays and saucers,

in the soft rustle of feminine hospitality, in the common catechism about

cream and sugar, we know that the Worship of Tea is established beyond

question. The philosophic resignation of the guest to the fate awaiting

him in the dubious decoction proclaims that in this single instance the

Oriental spirit reigns supreme.

The earliest record of tea in European writing is said to be found in the

statement of an Arabian traveller, that after the year 879 the main sources

of revenue in Canton were the duties on salt and tea. Marco Polo records

the deposition of a Chinese minister of finance in 1285 for his arbitrary

augmentation of the tea-taxes. It was at the period of the great

discoveries that the European people began to know more about the

extreme Orient. At the end of the sixteenth century the Hollanders

brought the news that a pleasant drink was made in the East from the

leaves of a bush. The travellers Giovanni Batista Ramusio (1559), L.

Almeida (1576), Maffeno (1588), Tareira (1610), also mentioned tea. In

the last-named year ships of the Dutch East India Company brought the

first tea into Europe. It was known in France in 1636, and reached

Russia in 1638. England welcomed it in 1650 and spoke of it as "That

excellent and by all physicians approved China drink, called by the

The Book of Tea

Chineans Tcha, and by other nations Tay, alias Tee."

Like all good things of the world, the propaganda of Tea met with

opposition. Heretics like Henry Saville (1678) denounced drinking it as

a filthy custom. Jonas Hanway (Essay on Tea, 1756) said that men

seemed to lose their stature and comeliness, women their beauty through

the use of tea. Its cost at the start (about fifteen or sixteen shillings a

pound) forbade popular consumption, and made it "regalia for high

treatments and entertainments, presents being made thereof to princes and

grandees." Yet in spite of such drawbacks tea-drinking spread with

marvellous rapidity. The coffee-houses of London in the early half of the

eighteenth century became, in fact, tea-houses, the resort of wits like

Addison and Steele, who beguiled themselves over their "dish of tea."

The beverage soon became a necessity of life--a taxable matter. We are

reminded in this connection what an important part it plays in modern

history. Colonial America resigned herself to oppression until human

endurance gave way before the heavy duties laid on Tea. American

independence dates from the throwing of tea-chests into Boston harbour.

There is a subtle charm in the taste of tea which makes it irresistible

and capable of idealisation. Western humourists were not slow to mingle

the fragrance of their thought with its aroma. It has not the arrogance

of wine, the self- consciousness of coffee, nor the simpering innocence of

cocoa. Already in 1711, says the Spectator: "I would therefore in a

particular manner recommend these my speculations to all well-regulated

families that set apart an hour every morning for tea, bread and butter; and

would earnestly advise them for their good to order this paper to be

punctually served up and to be looked upon as a part of the tea-

equipage." Samuel Johnson draws his own portrait as "a hardened and

shameless tea drinker, who for twenty years diluted his meals with only

the infusion of the fascinating plant; who with tea amused the evening,

with tea solaced the midnight, and with tea welcomed the morning."

Charles Lamb, a professed devotee, sounded the true note of Teaism

when he wrote that the greatest pleasure he knew was to do a good

action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident. For Teaism is the

art of concealing beauty that you may discover it, of suggesting what you

The Book of Tea

dare not reveal. It is the noble secret of laughing at yourself, calmly yet

thoroughly, and is thus humour itself,--the smile of philosophy. All

genuine humourists may in this sense be called tea-philosophers,--

Thackeray, for instance, and of course, Shakespeare. The poets of the

Decadence (when was not the world in decadence?), in their protests

against materialism, have, to a certain extent, also opened the way to

Teaism. Perhaps nowadays it is our demure contemplation of the

Imperfect that the West and the East can meet in mutual consolation.

The Taoists relate that at the great beginning of the No-Beginning,

Spirit and Matter met in mortal combat. At last the Yellow Emperor, the

Sun of Heaven, triumphed over Shuhyung, the demon of darkness and

earth. The Titan, in his death agony, struck his head against the solar

vault and shivered the blue dome of jade into fragments. The stars lost

their nests, the moon wandered aimlessly among the wild chasms of the

night. In despair the Yellow Emperor sought far and wide for the repairer

of the Heavens. He had not to search in vain. Out of the Eastern sea

rose a queen, the divine Niuka, horn-crowned and dragon-tailed,

resplendent in her armor of fire. She welded the five-coloured rainbow

in her magic cauldron and rebuilt the Chinese sky. But it is told that

Niuka forgot to fill two tiny crevices in the blue firmament. Thus

began the dualism of love--two souls rolling through space and never at

rest until they join together to complete the universe. Everyone has to

build anew his sky of hope and peace.

The heaven of modern humanity is indeed shattered in the Cyclopean

struggle for wealth and power. The world is groping in the shadow of

egotism and vulgarity. Knowledge is bought through a bad conscience,

benevolence practiced for the sake of utility. The East and the West, like

two dragons tossed in a sea of ferment, in vain strive to regain the jewel of

life. We need a Niuka again to repair the grand devastation; we await the

great Avatar. Meanwhile, let us have a sip of tea. The afternoon glow is

brightening the bamboos, the fountains are bubbling with delight, the

soughing of the pines is heard in our kettle. Let us dream of evanescence,

and linger in the beautiful foolishness of things.

The Book of Tea

II. The Schools of Tea.

Tea is a work of art and needs a master hand to bring out its noblest

qualities. We have good and bad tea, as we have good and bad paintings-

-generally the latter. There is no single recipe for making the perfect tea,

as there are no rules for producing a Titian or a Sesson. Each preparation

of the leaves has its individuality, its special affinity with water and heat,

its own method of telling a story. The truly beautiful must always be in it.

How much do we not suffer through the constant failure of society to

recognise this simple and fundamental law of art and life; Lichilai, a Sung

poet, has sadly remarked that there were three most deplorable things in

the world: the spoiling of fine youths through false education, the

degradation of fine art through vulgar admiration, and the utter waste of

fine tea through incompetent manipulation.

Like Art, Tea has its periods and its schools. Its evolution may be

roughly divided into three main stages: the Boiled Tea, the Whipped Tea,

and the Steeped Tea. We moderns belong to the last school. These

several methods of appreciating the beverage are indicative of the spirit of

the age in which they prevailed. For life is an expression, our

unconscious actions the constant betrayal of our innermost thought.

Confucius said that "man hideth not." Perhaps we reveal ourselves too

much in small things because we have so little of the great to conceal.

The tiny incidents of daily routine are as much a commentary of racial

ideals as the highest flight of philosophy or poetry. Even as the

difference in favorite vintage marks the separate idiosyncrasies of different

periods and nationalities of Europe, so the Tea-ideals characterise the

various moods of Oriental culture. The Cake-tea which was boiled, the

Powdered-tea which was whipped, the Leaf-tea which was steeped,

mark the distinct emotional impulses of the Tang, the Sung, and the

Ming dynasties of China. If we were inclined to borrow the much-

abused terminology of art-classification, we might designate them

respectively, the Classic, the Romantic, and the Naturalistic schools of

Tea.

The tea-plant, a native of southern China, was known from very early

The Book of Tea

times to Chinese botany and medicine. It is alluded to in the classics

under the various names of Tou, Tseh, Chung, Kha, and Ming, and was

highly prized for possessing the virtues of relieving fatigue, delighting

the soul, strengthening the will, and repairing the eyesight. It was not only

administered as an internal dose, but often applied externally in form of

paste to alleviate rheumatic pains. The Taoists claimed it as an important

ingredient of the elixir of immortality. The Buddhists used it extensively

to prevent drowsiness during their long hours of meditation.

By the fourth and fifth centuries Tea became a favourite beverage

among the inhabitants of the Yangtse-Kiang valley. It was about this time

that modern ideograph Cha was coined, evidently a corruption of the

classic Tou. The poets of the southern dynasties have left some fragments

of their fervent adoration of the "froth of the liquid jade." Then emperors

used to bestow some rare preparation of the leaves on their high ministers

as a reward for eminent services. Yet the method of drinking tea at this

stage was primitive in the extreme. The leaves were steamed, crushed in

a mortar, made into a cake, and boiled together with rice, ginger, salt,

orange peel, spices, milk, and sometimes with onions! The custom obtains

at the present day among the Thibetans and various Mongolian tribes, who

make a curious syrup of these ingredients. The use of lemon slices by

the Russians, who learned to take tea from the Chinese caravansaries,

points to the survival of the ancient method.

It needed the genius of the Tang dynasty to emancipate Tea from its

crude state and lead to its final idealization. With Luwuh in the middle

of the eighth century we have our first apostle of tea. He was born in an

age when Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism were seeking mutual

synthesis. The pantheistic symbolism of the time was urging one to mirror

the Universal in the Particular. Luwuh, a poet, saw in the Tea-service the

same harmony and order which reigned through all things. In his

celebrated work, the "Chaking" (The Holy Scripture of Tea) he formulated

the Code of Tea. He has since been worshipped as the tutelary god of the

Chinese tea merchants.

The "Chaking" consists of three volumes and ten chapters. In the first

chapter Luwuh treats of the nature of the tea-plant, in the second of the

The Book of Tea

implements for gathering the leaves, in the third of the selection of the

leaves. According to him the best quality of the leaves must have

"creases like the leathern boot of Tartar horsemen, curl like the dewlap of

a mighty bullock, unfold like a mist rising out of a ravine, gleam like a

lake touched by a zephyr, and be wet and soft like fine earth newly swept

by rain."

The fourth chapter is devoted to the enumeration and description of the

twenty-four members of the tea-equipage, beginning with the tripod

brazier and ending with the bamboo cabinet for containing all these

utensils. Here we notice Luwuh's predilection for Taoist symbolism.

Also it is interesting to observe in this connection the influence of tea on

Chinese ceramics. The Celestial porcelain, as is well known, had its

origin in an attempt to reproduce the exquisite shade of jade, resulting, in

the Tang dynasty, in the blue glaze of the south, and the white glaze of the

north. Luwuh considered the blue as the ideal colour for the tea-cup, as it

lent additional greenness to the beverage, whereas the white made it look

pinkish and distasteful. It was because he used cake-tea. Later on,

when the tea masters of Sung took to the powdered tea, they preferred

heavy bowls of blue-black and dark brown. The Mings, with their

steeped tea, rejoiced in light ware of white porcelain.

In the fifth chapter Luwuh describes the method of making tea. He

eliminates all ingredients except salt. He dwells also on the much-

discussed question of the choice of water and the degree of boiling it.

According to him, the mountain spring is the best, the river water and the

spring water come next in the order of excellence. There are three stages

of boiling: the first boil is when the little bubbles like the eye of fishes

swim on the surface; the second boil is when the bubbles are like crystal

beads rolling in a fountain; the third boil is when the billows surge wildly

in the kettle. The Cake-tea is roasted before the fire until it becomes soft

like a baby's arm and is shredded into powder between pieces of fine paper.

Salt is put in the first boil, the tea in the second. At the third boil, a

dipperful of cold water is poured into the kettle to settle the tea and revive

the "youth of the water." Then the beverage was poured into cups and

drunk. O nectar! The filmy leaflet hung like scaly clouds in a serene

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

TheBookofTea1TheBookofTeabyKakuzoOkakuraTheBookofTea2I.TheCupofHumanityTeabeganasamedicineandgrewintoabeverage.InChina,intheeighthcentury,itenteredtherealmofpoetryasoneofthepoliteamusements.ThefifteenthcenturysawJapanennobleitintoareligionofaestheticism--Teaism.Teaismisacultfoundedontheadorationofth...

展开>> 收起<<

The Book of Tea(茶书).pdf

共50页,预览10页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

The Book of Tea(茶书)

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: