A RITUAL STEEPED IN HISTORY IN THE TEA GARDEN
THE tea plant Camellia sinensis was introduced to Japan from China in the 12th century, and was originally used by Buddhist monks to help them stay awake to meditate. But this evolved into a style of tea ceremony called wabi-cha, held in very simple thatched huts called soan. Japanese rough bowls replaced expensive Chinese porcelain and the utensils were deliberately rustic and simple. Everything about the ceremony became ritualised and the garden that it was enacted in was based upon the philosophy of wabi-sabi.
Wabi-sabi means a combination of the awareness of transience, and the understated, weathered aesthetic that dominates the tea ceremony. Simplicity, the patina of use and age and the awareness of the beauty of accidental imperfection, are all part of it.
The name for a tea garden is roji, which means path, and many are little more than paths to the tea houses set about with plants to create the atmosphere of a wooded mountainside. But all are designed so that by the time you reach the tea house you are in the right frame of mind.
The garden is likely to be gentle and unimposing. The trees and shrubs are planted to create veils or layers of view, often with larger
trees, stones or bushes in the foreground and smaller ones at the margins, creating the impression of infinite horizons.
The path to the tea house will always be winding or zigzagged and made of irregular slabs or wooden blocks. Before the ceremony the tea master will apparently wet the stones of the path, the better for the guests to appreciate their natural beauty. That this made the slabs slippery was considered a virtue because it helped concentrate the mind on the approach to the ceremony – or else you fell flat on your backside. By slowing you down and forcing you to concentrate, you were emptying your mind of clutter.