The tea ceremony: the ritual of taste

Over the years, another unforgettable experience during my travels to Japan has been the tea ceremony. It is a Zen ritual made up of steady and slow movements, and is a sublime synthesis of rules of behaviour inspired by principles established centuries ago: harmony, respect, purity and tranquillity.

Everyone, actors and spectators, abides by the rules. Movements and gestures are the undefined scheme of an action that is always different: from the boiling of the water to the way in which the tea is served. Naturally, the ceremony has a powerful spiritual content: the atmosphere is refined and there is always silence, broken by comments, which are also perfectly codified, about the tea, the utensils and the ceramics used. And the tea itself? That is just a detail.