i loved this book when i read it several years ago, using it as a first page for the last issue of my zine pink tea (see below); it was a nice counterweight to Catch-22 to read it again now. it’s a very layered look at the history of tea and tea ceremonies, digging deeper than one may expect in such a short work.

… it is less a book than a (sometimes political) pamphlet. Westernization, it suggests, is not all it’s cracked up to be, and in any case the West made only a feeble effort to understand the East but a vigorous effort to misrepresent and destroy it. —review by Kenneth Champeon

you can read the full text online, though there is also a great hardcover edition with a slipcase for those inclined toward that sort of thing—the ISBN for this edition is the one linked. below, an excerpt printed in my zine, pink tea #6.