The Cup of Humanity Summary and Analysis

Tea began as a medicine and only gradually grew into a beverage. Teaism is the word for the "religion of aestheticism," which has grown up around tea in Japanese culture. Teaism celebrates the beautiful, the pure, and the harmonious. However, it consists of much more—everything from hygiene (a celebration of cleanliness) to economics to literature to democracy. Japan's isolation has been beneficial to Teaism.

The rhetorical question is asked: Why so much fuss about tea? Mankind is well known for investing great care in small things. Westerners have embraced wine to excess, or celebrated war to excess; why not a simple and pure thing like tea? A typical Westerner might see in the tea ceremony a certain quaintness and childishness that he would then equate to the entire culture of Japan and its...