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A tea house (茶室 cha-shitsu) is a structure
designed for holding
Japanese tea ceremonies.
Tea rooms for tea ceremony are also called cha-shitsu, but they are
located within a dwelling. Tea houses in Japan are usually small, wooden
buildings and are located in remote, quiet areas or in the gardens or
grounds of larger houses.
The design of tea houses is heavily influenced by
Zen
Buddhist philosophy. A typical tea house is surrounded by a small
Japanese garden often featuring a
water pool. In the garden there will also be a waiting area for
guests, as well as a
roji, or "dewy path", leading to the tea house.
The tea house itself is usually built of wood and bamboo, and the only
entrance and exit is a small, square door which symbolically separates the
small, simple, quiet inside from the crowded, overwhelming outside world,
and encourages humility in the host and guests, as all must kneel to enter
the room. Tea houses usually consist of two rooms, one used for the
preparation of food, snacks and tea supplies, and the other for the
holding of the tea ceremony itself. The main room is typically extremely
small, often 4 1/2
tatami mats, and the ceilings are low. There is no furniture, except
what is required for the preparation of tea. There will usually be a
charcoal pit (a ro) in the center of the room for boiling water
for tea.
Guests and hosts sit
seiza style on the floor. There is usually little decoration. There
will be a tokonoma (scroll alcove) holding a scroll of
calligraphy or brush painting, and perhaps a simple, small flower
arrangement called cha-bana (茶花). All materials used are purposefully
simple and rustic. All doors and windows are traditional Japanese
shoji, made of thin strips of balsa wood covered in a translucent
Japanese paper which allows light from outside to come into the room.
The floor is built a few feet above the ground in order to keep the room
dry. These features are still common not only in traditional style houses
and inns but also in ordinary residences.
Tea houses are purpose-built as a place to hold a tea ceremony and each
element is arranged with extreme care. The tea house itself can be seen as
one of the tools for the tea ceremony.
Tea houses were first introduced in the
Sengoku period in Japan, a time in which the central government had
nearly no practical power, the country was in chaos, and wars and
uprisings were commonplace. Seeking to reclaim Japan,
samurai were busy acquiring and defending territories, promoting trade
and overseeing the output of farms, mills and mines as de-facto rulers,
and many of the poor were eager to seek the salvation of the afterlife as
taught by Buddhism.
Tea houses were built mostly by Zen monks or by daimyo, samurai, and
merchants who practiced tea ceremony. They sought simplicity and
tranquility, which was akin to the values of Zen, in which samurai found
salvation and philosophy for their fate.
The acknowledgment of simplicity and plainness, which is a central
motivation of the tea house, continued to remain as a distinct Japanese
tradition in the later periods.
References
- "Introduction to oriental civilizations: Sources of the Japanese
Tradition." Columbia University Press: New York 1958
- Verley, Paul. "Japanese Culture." 4th ed. Updated and Expanded.
University of Hawaii Press. 2000
- Murphey, Rhoads. "East Asian: a new History." 2nd ed. Addison-Wesley
Educational Publishers 2001
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