New web resource! Japanese Tea Ceremony: The Way of Tea  

The Way of Tea is a new web resource about the Japanese Tea Ceremony, created and launched by the Five College Center for East Asian Studies (FCCEAS). Says Anne Prescott, Director of the Center, "We created the website in response to interest from art educators, specifically those who teach ceramics. Many of those teachers have their students make Japanese tea bowls, and they want their students to understand the context in which the tea bowls are used, specifically the history and aesthetics of the tea ceremony and how those influence tea bowl design. They also indicated that they had not been able to find videos of the entire tea ceremony with adequate English explanations. So our goal was to create videos of the entire tea ceremony for two different ceremony styles, as well as shorter videos showing important portions of the tea ceremony. Teachers also requested information on the individual tea implements so that students will understand how those implements fit into the larger picture, and what aesthetic characteristics the tea bowls and other implements share. We hope to develop implementation strategies over the next year for Japanese language and social studies classes. One of the segments (on bowing) could be used to demonstrate the importance of that social ritual in Japan. We're also currently working on a history curriculum unit on international tea trade which will complement the tea ceremony website. That should be available by early summer 2015."  

Yuko Eguchi, a doctoral candidate in ethnomusicology at the University of Pittsburgh who is also an accredited tea master, created most of this digital curriculum for the Five College Center for East Asian Studies. Yuko is a native of Tokyo, did her undergrad at Bates College in ME, and is (hopefully!) very close to completing her PhD at Pitt.