Harmony in this context is multi-faceted. There is harmony between people, host and guest, and guest and guest. Their aimless aim is to share time, practising the social art of the Way, each in their role, and fluidly transcending the mundane.
Aesthetic harmony is also significant. In the original Chinese styles, before Rikyu and his influences, Shuko and Joo, utensils were matched much like the items in a grand dinner service. What wabicha, Tea in wabi style, developed by those three great masters, with its taste of rustic simplicity, the insufficient, and of Zen (a summary over-simplification), created was an aesthetic of harmonising variety employing utensils made by simple artisans or borrowed from other uses, in contrasting yet harmonising styles and materials. An unglazed, farmer’s seed jar may be furnished with a formal, highly-polished black lacquer lid, or, at another time, having a different feeling, with a fresh green leaf.
Crucial to Japanese culture is an awareness of the seasons: even office ladies’ uniforms, kimono styles, domestic decorations and, most of all, food ingredients, change with a dedicated persistence. Tea sits yet closer to nature with all selections, of utensils, food, sweets, incense, flowers, scroll even the procedure, changing, sometimes week by week.
The point may be seen as fostering harmony within oneself, and others.
Alex runs east teas in Borough Market, London, Friday 12-6p.m. and Saturday 9-4p.m. Email epoch@eastteas.com.
