Introduction

The Teaching Tea project came out of our shared desire to help make better introductory materials available for people interested in chanoyu and those responsible for teaching it in academic settings. Our goal is to help demystify chanoyu. We want to avoid admiring but orientalizing approaches but also to fairly represent the complex details that make chanoyu into a lifelong, connoisseur practice with a rich history and vocabulary of its own. In the introductory essay we discuss basic terminology, describe how chanoyu persists today, and trace a very short history of how it got to the twenty-first century. Teaching Tea is an ongoing collaborative project which will continue to grow. We hope that the essays, lesson plans, media, vocabulary, and reading lists that we have created will be of use to students and teachers alike.