Talking Tea

As December comes to a close and winter deepens here in the northern hemisphere, we're continuing our turn inward as we conclude our two-part series on the spirit of tea as reflected in chado, the Japanese way of tea. Today we're focusing on chabana, the art of flowers so integral to Japanese tea ceremony. To chat with us about chabana we're welcoming back Drew Hanson, an instructor in the Urasenke school of chado and founder/owner of the Boukakuan Japanese Tea House in New Jersey. (You may remember Drew from an earlier chado-related Talking Tea episode, Tea, Heart to Heart.) We're with Drew in the tea room at Boukakuan, and Drew talks with us about the guiding principles of chabana and how the flowers in the tea room relate to us as humans, mirroring our own constant state of transition and transience. Drew gives us specific guidance on how to choose and present flowers for tea, and we discuss the history of chabana and its relationship to Buddhism in Japan. We chat about bringing nature into the tea room in