The Book of Tea

Ritualized, romantic, and historically rich, the tea ceremony is the creation of something beautiful out of the everyday. Originally written in English more than a hundred years ago to be read aloud at Isabella Stewart Gardner's famous salon, The Book of Tea presents the meeting of East and West in a teacup. It explores Asian culture through the history and aestheticism-or "teaism"-of the tea ceremony and also suggests a deep connection between beauty and war, and between flowers and social more