Abstract Concepts in Chanoyu

An East Asian religious tradition (Ch: Chan; K: Sŏn; Ja: Zen) that some modern commentators have linked closely to chanoyu based in part on a late Edo-period text that claimed, with little evidence, that Zen and tea culture had always been synonymous.

Although often associated with tea utensils, the term seems to have been understood by 16th-century tea practitioners, in a more philosophical mode, as a way of living. The word derives from the verb wabiru (to feel forlorn, to be shabby) and had a negative connotation before gradually taking on the valence of a cultivated appreciation for simplicity. After the 16th century, it became affiliated with an approach to chanoyu associated with Sen no Rikyū.

An aesthetic derived from poetry that celebrates the profound beauty of something withered or unadorned. Sabi has multiple connotations, including "patina" from sabiru (to rust) and "desolate" from sabishii (lonely) to the classical verb sabu meaning to fade or to weaken. One way to interpret it might be "quiet beauty."

Over time this phrase has become synonymous with chanoyu, but it originally referred to the lineage of tea practiced by Murata Shukō, Takeno Jōō, Sen no Rikyū, and his followers. This style of tea culture emphasizes modest spaces, plain utensils, greenery rather than blooming flowers, and the beauty of simplicity.

The Vocabulario da Lingoa de Iapam (Vocabulary of the Language of Japan, 1603–1604) defines a sukisha as "a person who likes and enjoys the tea ceremony." In some writings about chanoyu you will see sukisha defined as a person of taste: i.e., not just any tea practitioner but a practitioner of particular standing and renown. Outside of chanoyu contexts, sukisha can also mean someone obsessed with sex or someone with refined taste.

This ill-defined term has been used in Japanese-language scholarship to refer to a variety of phenomena: the participation of warlords in tea culture in the 16th century; the practice of tea by warlords in the 17th century, such as Furuta Oribe, Kobori Enshū, and Katagiri Sekishū; or the style of tea common among elite warriors in the Edo period that mixed rustic tea (wabicha) with displays of warrior material culture.

A phrase attributed to Sen no Rikyū that has often been claimed to represent the heart of his philosophy and the true spirit of chanoyu. Revealingly, no evidence exists to connect Rikyū to this aphorism. Instead, it seems to have been invented around the one-hundred-year anniversary of his death, when a Rikyū revival swept through the world of tea, inspiring new forms of cultural production, new traditions, and new articulations of what tea had by then become in the urban marketplace of Edo-period Japan.

This phrase, which has been attributed to the daimyo tea master, Ii Naosuke, expresses the significant concept that a particular tea gathering—with its distinctive elements of host and guests, the season, the selected utensils, etc.—will never occur again in the same configuration. It suggests that the host and guest should interact with great kindness and sincerity, understanding how precious this moment is.

(lit. Tang things)" This term is found in 15th- and 16th-century tea sources, denoting the Chinese material and visual culture that was avidly collected by the Ashikaga shoguns, Sengoku-period warlords, and the emerging population of commoner tea practitioners.

A term applied to Europeans, who came to Japan after 1543 and were active in and around chanoyu during a vital period of its development. Nanban ware is an art historical term used to refer to tea utensils (dōgu) that display European motifs.

(lit. Koryŏ things) This term appears with increasing frequency in 16th-century tea diaries and utensil catalogs, indicating a growing interest among tea practitioners in tea bowls and other forms of material and visual culture from Korea.

Refers to material and visual culture imported to Japan from Southeast Asia; the term came into use after the mid-16th century.

Refers to material and visual culture made in Japan that is distinct from karamono in particular.

In poetry, toriawase refers to the harmonious blending of literary elements; in chanoyu, it refers to the intentional choosing of utensils for a tea gathering, with seasonal allusions, personal communications, aesthetic preferences, and other considerations all kept in mind.

Individual tea masters are thought to have their own "taste" or aesthetic preferences. Students of chanoyu today may refer to a utensil as Rikyū konomi meaning "in the taste of Rikyū," for example.