The World In A Bowl Of Tea

There are over 800 different ways to make tea for the tea ceremony
It's not a ritual
It involves the study of all the fine and applied arts: painting, calligraphy, ceramics, woodworking, lacquer, textile crafts, bamboo objects, cast metal, flower arranging, garden design, and cuisine
It's a form of entertaining that can last from three to four hours with a meal, building of a charcoal fire, serving of two kinds of sweets and two kinds of tea
It's a synesthesiac art. All the senses are involved: taste, touch, sight, hearing, smelling.
Continued in one family for over 400 years, passed down from father to son. Present generation is the 15th.