By Girija Madhavan
Chanoyu,” or “The Way of Tea” is a Japanese tradition of serving tea, a ritual evolved over centuries. It is the ceremonial presentation of “Matcha” or powdered green tea by a Tea Master to a small group of guests, generally in specified tea houses. With Zen Buddhist origins, it celebrates aesthetics and harmony. As a teenager in the 1950s, I had heard of a Hollywood film, “The Teahouse of the August Moon.” Adapted from a novel by Vern Sneider, it starred actors Marlon Brando and Glen Ford. I do not remember having seen it in the Gayathri Theatre in Mysore which screened many English films. Tea was brought to Japan from China in the 9th century and was first used in monasteries. By the 13th century, tea was considered an exotic drink and became a status symbol of the leisured class and the Samurai or warriors. The Tea Master, Sen No Rikyu , gave the ceremony philosophical and cultural content. He divested it of ostentation, creating small rustic tea houses and simple Raku pottery which is popular even now. The doors to the tea houses were small so that everyone had to bend to enter, symbolically making them equal. It also made the Samurai remove their heavy weapons! Sen No Rikyu, who is still revered in Japan, was ordered by the Shogun to commit suicide. So in his 70th year he wrote a farewell poem and committed “Seppuku,”suicide by disembowelment.
