茶の湯 chanoyu Tea Ceremony

茶の湯 is the Japanese word for the art of serving tea to guests, where a host makes powdered tea for them by set manners. Today the word can also mean simply the water boiled for the tea. The art's other name, 茶道, leans more toward a discipline of the spirit, while 茶の湯 names the thing on the fire. Whether it is for your own tea practice or for someone who studies the art is yours.

The word joins 茶, tea, and 湯, hot water, with the particle の, so that it says the hot water for tea; in the late fourteenth-century war tale 太平記 it is still the water kept hot for making tea, and by 1526, usually written 茶湯, it names the gathering and the art of tea, which was also called 数寄, while 茶道, the name English renders the Way of Tea, came into common use later, between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 茶の湯.

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