noblemen, of others traders or peasants;—for all were invited regardless of birth, a proof that the custom had begun to filter down into the lower strata of society.
A few years later (1594) Hideyoshi called together at his palace of Fushimi the heads of all various schools into which, by this time, the art of tea-drinking had split up. Chief among these was Sen-no-Rikyū, a name which every Japanese enthusiast reveres,—for he it was, or at least he principally, who collated, purified, and (so to say) codified the tea ceremonies, stamping them with the character wihch they have borne ever since. Simplicity had long been commanded by the poverty of the country, exhausted as it was by ages of warfare. He took this simplicity up, and raised it into a canon of taste as imperative as the respect for antiquity itself. The worship of simplicity and of the antique in objects of art, together with the observance of an elaborate code of etiquette—such are the doctrine and discipline of the tea ceremonies in their modern form, which has never varied since Sen-no-Rikyū's day. Though not the St. Paul of the tea cult, he was thus its Luther. Unfortunately he was not indifferent to money. He abused his unrivalled skill as a connoisseur of curios to enrich himself, and to curry favour with the great. Hideyoshi at last detected his venality and fraud, and caused him to be put to death.
The ceremonies themselves have often been described. They include a preliminary dinner, but tea-drinking is the chief thing. The tea used is in the form, not of tea-leaves, but of powder, so that the resulting beverage resembles pea-soup in colour and consistency.[1] There is a thicker kind called koi-cha, and a thinner kind called usu-cha. The former is used in the earlier stage of the proceedings, the latter towards the end. The tea is made and drunk in a preternaturally slow and formal manner, each action, each gesture being fixed by an elaborate code of rules. Every article connected with the ceremony, such
- ↑ Foreign gourmets resident in Japan have discovered that a delicious ice-cream can be made out of it.
