The Book of Tea by Okakura Kakuzo
Benjamin Press Edition
Japanese-born Okakura Kakuzo came to Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts in 1904 and later became director of its Asian Arts Department. He published his often-quoted The Book of Tea in English in 1906, and it has never gone out of print. Using tea as a common metaphor, he introduced the Asian concepts of beauty and simplicity to Gilded Age elites. This well illustrated 2011 Benjamin Press edition features a 30-page introduction by Bruce Richardson that details Okakura’s life and abiding influence. According to James Norwood Pratt, “It is perhaps the most important inspirational book in any tea library.”
