Member-only story

Live in the Present With the Ancient Tradition of Teaism

A well-planned act of spontaneity

Leo Carvalho
4 min readDec 18, 2019
East Asian inspired kettle illustration from Bijutsu Sekai (1893–1896) by Watanabe Seitei, from rawpixel.com

Here’s something mind-blowing: Teaism is about tea. It’s about the way Teaists prepare, drink, and even just sit and think about the east Asian leaf juice.

But Teaism isn’t just about tea. It is a tradition that slowly evolved into its modern state over thousands of years and yet is still quite modern. You might have heard of Teaism by another name, chadō(茶道). The term, literally meaning ‘the way of tea,’ is used to describe not only the famous Japanese tea ceremony but also the philosophy brilliantly outlined in Okakura Kakuzō’s “the Book of Tea.”

Tea with us became more than an idealisation of the form of drinking; it is a religion of the art of life. The beverage grew to be an excuse for the worship of purity and refinement, a sacred function at which the host and guest joined to produce for that occasion the utmost beatitude of the mundane.

The Book of Tea is not only about the moment of the actual ceremony, but everything in between. Teaism is the preparation of the room, the preparation of the room that will lead…

The author made this story available to Medium members only.
If you’re new to Medium, create a new account to read this story on us.

Or, continue in mobile web

Already have an account? Sign in

Leo Carvalho
Leo Carvalho

Written by Leo Carvalho

Writing about programming and the life of a developer, with some other things sprinkled in between

No responses yet

Write a response