Okakura Kakuzo
Amazon Price: $30.00
List Price: $30.00
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Subjects -> Cooking, Food & Wine -> Drinks & Beverages -> Coffee & Tea
Subjects -> Cooking, Food & Wine -> Drinks & Beverages -> General AAS
Subjects -> Cooking, Food & Wine -> Regional & International -> Asian -> Japanese
Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1
Average rating: 1.0 of 5
horribly disappointing 1 out of 5 stars.
27 of 28 people found this review helpful.
My Japanese tea ceremony instructor bought this kit at the Freer Gallery`s gift shop to see what kind of quality would be available from a national museum specializing in Asian art. The answer: horribly disappointing. The only thing decent about it is the included book. The tea bowl is wrong, the incense is wrong, the whisk is quite wrong, and the fukusa is hideously, hideously wrong. The kit seems to be targeted toward clueless hippies.
The tea bowl was the item on which I was least clear what was wrong. It was too heavy for one thing, and it also didn't have glaze on the bottom.
The tines of the chasen, as you may be able to see from the product picture, are waaaaay too thick. The incense is in a stick form, which isn't right. (We haven't yet learned anything about incense or its role in chado, so I didn't know that.)
My instructor didn't even recognize the included piece of cloth as a fukusa. It was a white satin type of material, single thickness, with frayed edges. It wasn't folded right. This piece of cloth was the low point, the rock bottom, the pièce de crapitance, of the set.
You could arguably criticize the set for lacking a chashaku and natsume and matcha itself (IIRC); it can't claim to have everything you'd need for a tea ceremony. Now that I think about it, tea people could probably debate exactly what elements would constitute "everything you'd need for a tea ceremony," but I can't imagine those wouldn't include a chashaku and natsume.
The $18.90 price should probably be a giveaway. Not that "more expensive" = "higher quality", but it would just be impossible to provide any authenticity in a set that costs that little.
Editorial Review:
With its emphasis on ritual and aesthetics, the ceremonial presentation of tea provides a fascinating introduction to many aspects of Japanese culture. In the popular classic The Book of Tea, Japanese scholar Okakura Kakuzo seeks to explain "the way of tea" to westerners, in the hope that they will understand this insightful ritual as far more than the offering of a mere brewed beverage. His profound, poetic work explores the history of tea as well as the subtler Zen spirituality behind the centuries-old ceremony. This beautifully designed kit contains Kakuzo's Book of Tea plus utensils to use in recreating the tea ceremony at home: a traditional bowl and split bamboo whisk. It's a wonderful way to get in touch with life's pure and simple pleasures and to learn to savor a bowl of tea in the most eloquent way.
