Aesthetics

Ikegami, Eiko. Bonds of Civility: Aesthetic Networks and the Political Origins of Japanese Culture. Structural Analysis in the Social Sciences. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Kobori Enshū kirei-sabi no kiwami [Kobori Enshū: The Perfection of Kirei-Sabi]. Edited by Arata Isozaki. Tokyo: Shinchosha, 2006.

Kobori, Sōkei. Kirei-sabi no cha: Kobori Enshū no bi to kokoro [The Tea of Austere Beauty: Kobori Enshū's Aesthetics and Spirit]. Tokyo: Shōgakkan, 2005.

Koren, Leonard. Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press, 1994.

It should be noted that Koren's text has been critiqued for disregarding the distinct historical context and traditional interpretations of these separate, albeit frequently linked, terms. It is more frequently cited in Western sources that apply these two concepts to a wide range of arts both in Japan and globally.

Kōshirō, Haga. "The Wabi Aesthetic through the Ages." In Japanese Aesthetics and Culture: A Reader, edited by Nancy G. Hume, 245–278. SUNY Series in Asian Studies Development. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1995.

Kumakura, Isao. "Wabi, kabuki, kirei: Kobori Enshū no chanoyu no keifu" [Rusticity, Perversity, Beauty: A Genealogy of Kobori Enshū's Tea]. In Kobori Enshū: kirei sabi no kiwami [Kobori Enshū: The Realization of "Austere Beauty"], edited by Sōkei Kobori, Isao Kumakura, and Arata Isozaki, 16–31. Tokyo: Shinchosha, 2006.

Ludwig, Theodore M. "Before Rikyū. Religious and Aesthetic Influences in the Early History of the Tea Ceremony." Monumenta Nipponica 36, no. 4 (1981): 367–390.

Nishida, Masayoshi. Rikyū to Bashō: wabi to sabi no genryū [Rikyū and Bashō: The Origins of Wabi and Sabi]. Tokyo: Ōfūsha, 1975.

Shirane, Haruo. Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons: Nature, Literature, and the Arts New York: Columbia University Press, 2012.

Addresses seasonality pertaining to chanoyu. See, in particular, Introduction, Chapter 1, Chapter 3.

Toriainen, Minna. From Austere Wabi to Golden Wabi: Philosophical and Aesthetic Aspects of Wabi in the Way of Tea. Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society, 2000.

Art History and the Material Culture of Tea

Akanuma, Taka. "Sen Rikyū's Tea Utensils." Chanoyu Quarterly 62 (1990): 7–37.

Bartlett, Christy. "A Tearoom View of Mended Ceramics." In Flickwerk: The Aesthetics of Mended Japanese Ceramics. Münster, Westfalen: Museum für Lackkunst and Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, 2008.

Chanoyu: Tea in the Cultural Life of Kyoto [Chanoyu: Kyō ni ikiru bunka]. Kyoto: Kyoto National Museum and The Yomiuri Shimbun, 2022.

Ching, Dora C. Yl, Louise Allison Cort, and Andrew Watsky, eds. Around Chigusa: Tea and the Arts of Sixteenth-century Japan. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017.

Corbett, Rebecca. "Crafting Identity as a Tea Practitioner in Early Modern Japan: Ōtagaki Rengetsu and Tagami Kikusha." U.S.-Japan Women's Journal 47 (2014): 3–27.

Cort, Louise Allison. "Shopping for Pots in Momoyama Japan." In Japanese Tea Culture: Art, History and Practice, edited by Morgan Pitelka, 61–65. London: Routledge Curzon, 2003.

Cort, Louise Allison, and Andrew Watsky, eds. Chigusa and the Art of Tea. Washington, DC: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (Smithsonian Institution); Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2014.

Cox, Rupert. The Zen Arts: An Anthropological Study of the Culture of Aesthetic Form in Japan. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis, 2013.

Furuta, Shokin. "Philosophical Aspects of the Chashitsu." Chanoyu Quarterly 59 (1989): 7–31.

Graham, Patricia J. "Karamono for Sencha: Transformations in the Taste for Chinese Art." In Japanese Tea Culture: Art, History, Practice, edited by Morgan Pitelka, 110–136. New York: Routledge, 2003.

Hayashiya, Tatsusaburō, Masao Nakamura, and Hayashiya Seizō, eds. Japanese Arts and the Tea Ceremony. Translated by Joseph P. Macadam. Kamei Katsuichirō, Takahashi Seiichirō, and Tanaka Ichimatsu. New York: Weatherhill, 1974.

Kōji, Saeki. "Chinese Trade Ceramics in Medieval Japan." Translated by Peter Shapinsky. In Tools of Culture: Japan's Cultural, Intellectual, Medical and Technological Contacts in East Asia, 1100s-1500s, edited by Andrew Goble, Kenneth R. Robinson, and Haruko Nishioka Wakabayashi, 163–182. Ann Arbor, MI: Association of Asian Studies, 2009, 163-182.

Kumakura, Isao. Rikyū Oribe Enshū: meihō Nihon no bijutsu [Rikyū, Oribe, Enshū: Great Treasures of Japanese Art]. Tokyo: Shōgakkan, 1983.

Maske, Andrew L. Potters and Patrons in Edo-Period Japan: Takatori Ware and the Kuroda Domain. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011.

Murase, Miyeko, Mutsuko Amemiya, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, eds. Turning Point: Oribe and the Arts of Sixteenth-Century Japan, edited by Murase Miyeko, Mutsuko Amemiya, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, eds. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003.

Ōki, Sadako. Tea Culture of Japan. New Haven: Yale University Art Gallery, 2009.

Oshikiri, Taka. "The Shogun's Tea Jar: Ritual, Material Culture, and Political Authority in Early Modern Japan." Historical Journal 59, no. 4 (December 2016): 927–945.

Pitelka, Morgan. Handmade Culture: Raku Potters, Patrons and Tea Practitioners in Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005.

Rousmaniere, Nicole C. "Tea Ceremony Utensils and Ceramics." In Japan's Golden Age: Momoyama, edited by M. L. Hickman, 202–227. Dallas: Dallas Museum of Art, 1996.

Shoin and Sukiya: Daimyo Tea Ceremony. Nagoya: Tokugawa Art Museum, 1992.

Stalker, Nancy. "Strange Nuptials: Matthew Barney's Japan in Drawing Restraint 9." Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 20, no. 4 (2012): 1191–1213.

This article addresses artist Matthew Barney's 2005 cinematic performance-piece, which incorporates elements of an imagined and reinterpreted chanoyu ceremony into a larger piece exploring themes of Japanese whaling, seafaring, pearl diving, and matrimony.

The Art of Chanoyu: the Urasenke Tradition of Tea. Kyoto: Urasenke Foundation of Kyoto, 1985.

Watsky, Andrew M. "Locating 'China' in the Arts of Sixteenth‐Century Japan." Art History 29, no. 4 (2006): 600–624.

Related Arts

Cox, Rupert. The Zen Arts: An Anthropological Study of the Culture of Aesthetic Form in Japan. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis, 2013.

Keane, Marc Peter. The Japanese Tea Garden. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press, 2014.

Mittwer, Henry. Zen Flowers: Chabana and the Tea Ceremony. Boston: Tuttle Publishing, 2012.

Mochinaga, Kaori. Kintsugi: the Wabi Sabi Art of Japanese Ceramic Repair. Translated by Sanae Ishidai. Rutland: Tuttle Publishing, 2023.

Rath, Eric C. "Reevaluating Rikyu: Kaiseki and the Origins of Japanese Cuisine." Journal of Japanese Studies 39, no. 1 (2013): 67–96.

Simpson, Penny, and Kanji Sodeoka. The Japanese Pottery Handbook. New York: Kodansha, 1979 (2014).

Tsutsui, Hiroichi. "The Transmission of Tea Traditions through Verse." Chanoyu Quarterly 24 (1980): 35–44.

Winfield, Pamela D., and Steven Heine, eds. Zen and Material Culture, edited by Pamela D. Winfield and Steven Heine. New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2017.

Yagi, Ichio. "Uta-mei: The Poetic Names of Tea Utensils." Chanoyu Quarterly 83 (1996): 16–40.

Tea Praxis

Anderson, Jennifer Lea. An Introduction to Japanese Tea Ritual. Albany: State University of New York, 1991.

Brekell, Oscar. A Beginner's Guide to Japanese Tea: Selecting and Brewing the Perfect Cup of Sencha, Matcha and Other Japanese Teas. Rutland, VT: Tuttle, 2021.

Channell, Randy Sōei. The Book of Chanoyu: Tea, the Master Key to Japanese Culture. Kyoto: Shohan, 2016.

Chiba, Kaeko. The Japanese Tea Ceremony: An Introduction. New York: Routledge, 2023.

Fushin'an Bunko, ed. Japanese Tea Culture: The Omotesenke Tradition. Translated by Morgan Pitelka. Kyoto: Fushin'an, 2002.

Jolliffe, Lee, MSM Aslam, Amnaj Khaokhrueamuang, and Li-Hisn Chen. Routledge Handbook of Tea Tourism. New York: Routledge, 2023

Oshikiri, Taka. Gathering for Tea in Modern Japan: Class, Culture and Consumption in the Meiji Period. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018.

Sadler, A.L. Chanoyu: The Japanese Tea Ceremony. Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle, 1962.

Sen, Sōshitsu XV. Chanoyu: The Urasenke Tradition of Tea. New York: Weatherhill, 1988.

Surak, Kristin. Making Tea, Making Japan: Cultural Nationalism in Practice. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012.

Tea Philosophy

Cross, Tim. The Ideologies of Japanese Tea: Subjectivity, Transience and National Identity. Folkestone, UK: Global Oriental, 2009.

Hirota, Dennis, ed. Wind in the Pines: Classic Writings of the Way of Tea as a Buddhist Path. Kyoto: Asian Humanities Press, 1995.

Kamo no Chomei. Hojoki: A Buddhist Reflection on Solitude: Imperfection and Transcendence - Bilingual English and Japanese Texts with Free Online Audio Recordings. Translated by Matthew Stavros. Illustrated by Reginald Jackson. North Clarendon, VT: Tuttle Publishing, 2024.

Okakura, Kakuzo. The Book of Tea. New York: Stone Bridge Press, 2007.

Originally published in 1906, this text is omnipresent in tea discourse but also considered problematic for the reductive and exoticizing way the author describes tea praxis and its cultural significance. Readers are well-advised to omit it as a credible scholarly source, or to read it with an eye for implicit bias.

Yoshida, Kenkō, and Donald Keene. Essays in Idleness: The Tsurezuregusa of Kenkō. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.

Curricula, Dictionaries and other Reference Texts

Chadō bairingaru jiten [The Bilingual Encyclopedia of Chadō]. Compiled by Koichi Eugene Okamoto. Translated by Viviane Lowe. Tokyo: Daishūkan Shoten, 2023.

Lai, Selena, and Sōshitsu Sen XV. Tea and the Japanese Tradition of Chanoyu. Stanford: Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE), 2005. Curriculum unit for secondary or higher ed classrooms.

Sanmi, Sasaki. Chado, The Way of Tea: A Tea Master's Almanac. Translated by Shaun McCabe and Iwasaki Satoko. Boston: Tuttle, 2002.

Sen, Sōshitsu XV. Tea Etiquette for Guests: A Practical Guide for Chanoyu Study. Translated by Alfred Birnbaum. Kyoto: Tankōsha, 1993.

Sen, Sōshitsu XV. Urasenke Chanoyu Handbook One. Kyoto: Urasenke Foundation, 1993.

Sen, Sōshitsu XV. Urasenke Chanoyu Handbook Two. Kyoto: Urasenke Foundation, 1996.

Tsutsui, Hiroichi, ed. Shinpan chadō daijiten [New Edition Dictionary of the Way of Tea], edited by Hiroichi Tsutsui. Kyoto: Tankōsha, 2010.

Urasenke International Association, ed. A Chanoyu Vocabulary: Practical Terms for the Way of Tea, edited by Urasenke International Association. Kyoto: Tankōsha, 2007.