The Tea Path

Japan. So far away from my native country and so different. While Brazil has soccer as a national passion, Japan has baseball... while we have 500 years of history, Japan has more then 2.500... while we express ourselves with movement and words, they contemplate stillness and silence... ... ...while we contemplate coffee, they drink tea. The green tea is everywhere: served in restaurants, eaten as ice cream, sweets, candies, cakes... represented in silks, clothes and fans, shown in gentle gestures... grown in fields... practiced by gueishas and old souls. The green tea is a strong voice of the Japanese culture.

But the story started much earlier than the actual tea ceremonies can remember. Brought from China by monks, the green face of Japan was mainly consumed by priests and nobles as a medicine during the Nara period. The pleasure for its taste only came after battles and prayers, warriors and emperors, enclosures and deals... after the religious ritual became the wings of the highly educated: a symbol of status. 

The tea ceremony had many different faces and shaped itself through time, passing by the strong influence of the samurais and the spirit of Murata Shukou that found the balance between the two worlds: China and Japan.

The hands of Murata Juko transformed it into the "way of tea" that is characterized by silence, resilience, slow movements, simplicity, beauty, humility, profundity, emptiness, purity and respect. Unadorned bowls, containers, gongs and chopsticks, celebrate the unique present moment. Each movement has a deep meaning and a profound wholeness, once it will never happen again. As a foreigner I see the tea ceremony as a representation of the fluidity of life and a path to reach ones self through perfection.

和 敬 清 寂