Wednesday, March 26, 2008

History of the tea ritual and etiquette

Here's some information on the afternoon tea as a ritual in English and American culture. There is also information here on tea etiquette

http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/HighTeaHistory.htm

http://www.panix.com/~kendra/tea/afternoon_tea.html

Here's a time line which describes the history of tea:

http://www.2basnob.com/tea-history-timeline.html

Here's a link to directions for the Chinese Tea ritual (and, for Robbie, a link to the Imperial Tea Court. One of the best tea sources in America.):

http://www.imperialtea.com/classroom/GongfuPrep.asp

Here's a site which discusses chado--the Japanese Way of Tea, or as it is called in the west, the Japanese Tea Ceremony:

http://www.kato3.org/chanoyu/frame.html

What I hope you are seeing is that even something as simple as drinking tea has a rhetoric, different discourses, different discourse communities, and different ways to build ethos and use the act to create meaning.

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