The Japanese Tea Ceremony

Tea drinking began in China among the Zen monks, who used it as a method of preventing sleep, and from that progressed to the Cha King or Tea Gospel of Luh Wuh in the period of T'ang, but it was the Sung and Yuan ages with their devotion to philosophy on one hand and sentiment on the other that combined Tea and Zen to produce that characteristic culture that aimed at a life of calm and simplicity.