Wiktionary
n. A detailed ritual in Japan for preparing, serving and drinking green tea, seen as an expression of Zen Buddhism; also any similar ritual performed in other Asian cultures.
WordNet
n. an ancient ritual for preparing and serving and drinking tea [syn: chanoyu]
Wikipedia
A tea ceremony is a ritualized form of making tea practiced in Asian culture by the Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Taiwanese, and Vietnamese. The tea ceremony, literally translated as "way of tea" in Japanese, and "art of tea" in Chinese , is a cultural activity involving the ceremonial preparation and presentation of tea. The Japanese tea ceremony is better known, and was influenced by the Chinese tea culture during ancient and medieval times, starting in the 9th century when tea was first introduced to Japan from China. The Vietnamese tea ceremony, also influenced by its Chinese counterpart, is only performed during weddings and other religious rituals. One can also refer to the whole set of rituals, tools, gestures, etc. used in such ceremonies as tea culture. All of these tea ceremonies and rituals contain "an adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday life", as well as refinement, an inner spiritual content, humility, restraint and simplicity "as all arts that partake the extraordinary, an artistic artificiality, abstractness, symbolism and formalism" to one degree or another.
At a very basic level, tea ceremonies are a formalized way of making tea, in a process which has been refined to yield the best taste. Historical documents on the subject include the 8th-century monograph " The Classic of Tea" and the 12th-century book Treatise on Tea.
Usage examples of "tea ceremony".
What about all the minute aspects of Japanese life that set us apart from everyone else: the complexity of the tea ceremony, the arts of ukiyo-e, ikebana, haiku, the concepts of honor, filial duty, bushido, giri.
The sennin could take no blame from Sun Hsiung and the female could return with honor to the areas for which she was best suited: the tea ceremony and, perhaps, flower arranging.
Since a child she had studied the tea ceremony, as he had, but now she was a Sensei, a teacher of tea in her own right.
As I learned from Pumpkin, beginning my training meant going to a school in another section of Gion to take lessons in things like music, dance, and tea ceremony.
As he often did before a tea ceremony, he relived his odyssey from his parents' country home to this cottage, just as rustic but far more costly.
She had learned the art of chano-yu, the tea ceremony, early-her mother had seen to that.
As if the round-eyed barbarians could appreciate a tea ceremony anyway!
She dressed slowly, to annoy them, like a striptease in reverse, with precise controlled motions of the sort suitable for a Japanese tea ceremony.