The Book of Tea

• First thoroughly annotated edition of The Book of Tea, the most important book on tea in the culture of Asia and the tea ceremony, with particular regard to Japan
• A classic study of Japanese culture, still widely read over a century after its first publication
• Accompanied by a very important essay on Okakura by Gian Carlo Calza who traces the biography and the cultural achievements of the treat Japanese scholar, more loved in the West than in his own country

The Book of Tea (1906) by Okakura Kakuzō has long become a classic. Its title notwithstanding, the book is not a manual on tea. Rather it is an essay, better a hymn, to culture, aesthetics and the spirit of tea as a symbol, a paradigm, of the Asian soul. It was created by a passionate Japanese scholar whose life was devoted to renew and spread the values of the East in the same moment in which his own country seemed to deny them in order to embrace Western culture. This new edition has an important apparatus of over 200 notes to explain the contents of the book and supply all the information needed to understand it fully (concepts of Eastern philosophy, history, geography, biographical information), something that so far has never been done. It also contains an important essay by Giancarlo Calza on Okakura and his role to foster intercultural understanding and the development of spirituality through the aesthetics and practice of the tea ceremony as a style of life.