Tea and the Japanese Tradition of Chanoyu

This lesson unit was written by educators who have a deep love and respect for tea and tea drinking as both an art form and a rich, cultural celebration. The authors do a wonderful job at providing the history of tea, explaining the difference between tea varieties(think green, black or white), and how it is processed. They then create a step-by-step plan to help students design and execute their own chanoyu(pronounced chah-no-you), or Japanese tea gathering. I use the word 'gathering' here because the authors make a point of emphasizing that although the Japanese tea tradition is highly ritualized, it is not so much a religious ritual or ceremony, but instead a celebration of culture and history. It is a highly organized event that embodies four main principles prized throughout the history of Japanese culture: harmony, respect, purity, and tranquility. These principles are expressed throughout the planning and execution of the tea gathering and it is hoped that they are then cultivated into each participant's life.  Students have many opportunities throughout the lesson to understand their importance and to put them into practice.  

The lesson book is very well organized and easy to follow.  It includes many useful handouts and detailed descriptions accompany each lesson. There are also key definitions placed in the columns of each page that highlight important terminology used in the main text. The unit begins with the history of tea and provides many interesting facts. For example, did you know that iced tea was invented in St. Louis at the World’s Fair of 1904? Or that tea harvesters might pick upwards of 30,000 shoots a day and it takes 3,200 shoots to make a single pound of tea! That is a lot of shoots and as a tea drinker, learning these fun facts made me appreciate my own morning ritual even more. They also served as an invitation for me to dive deeper into the lessons. 

Scavenger hunts, imaginative play, storytelling, and humor are used throughout the lessons to keep students engaged and interested. Students complete work individually and in small groups and are evaluated using a variety of different methods.  Quizzes, homework, and other useful handouts are provided and make it easy for teachers to gauge student learning.  

Chanoyu might unfold in a very ceremonial way, but it is considered to be a very relational activity, where the interaction between the tea makers and participants is emphasized. The tea gathering is also meant to be an event that celebrates community. It is believed that everyone who attends not only has something important to learn from it and each other, but that everyone has the potential to be transformed in some essential way. Students participating in this lesson will learn not only about the history of tea and Japanese culture, but have the opportunity to make interesting discoveries about themselves.  

Tea and the Japanese Tradition of Chanoyu is most appropriate to use with high school students, as some of the historic references in the lessons are for more mature students and many of the lessons require fairly advanced organization and interpersonal skills. However, as an elementary school teacher, I can imagine how you could pick and choose parts of this unit to introduce younger students to the tea gathering and utilize their interest in imaginative/creative play to bring the tea gathering to life in the elementary classroom.  

I teach Family and Consumer Sciences at the middle school level.
The SPICE curriculum unit Tea and the Japanese Tradition of Chanoyu is a thorough curriculum unit about tea; it’s history, uses, economic significance and cultural importance. Although it is from 2005 I find it is still relevant today. The activities appear to be engaging.
I rated it as a four because the objectives could be of a higher order and it doesn’t address the Family and Consumer Science standards. This curriculum unit could be modified for use for a world foods course.

Tea and the Japanese Tradition of Chanoyu lessons developed by the Stanford Program on International and Cross Cultural Education (SPICE) provides students in the middle and high school with a unique opportunity that honors all children’s cultures and values by developing creative strategies for including and expanding connections between personal communities and the larger world. The teacher facilitates the students’ development by helping them engage in active investigations that build knowledge and understanding.
Its goals and objectives could be extended far below the middle school into early elementary, kindergarten. Pa core 8.4 K.A. states “Explain how cultures celebrate. The learner will: identify and discuss their own method of celebrating, compare and contrast methods of celebrating with peers, and use digital media to explore ways various cultures celebrate.” Our kindergarten uses passports to pretend travel across the world to various countries to learn about dress, foods, and traditions that they compare and contrast with their own. With tea as common a drink in restaurants as water, our kindergarteners already have prior knowledge about it being prepared hot as well as cold. Many children already have a preference in ingredients. However, they don’t know that it comes from plants or that in other countries tea is not served as an afterthought to the meal but as an important, revered commodity.
These lessons could easily be transformed to a more tactile/kinesthetic approach. On Pinterest, there are lots of free, large scale black and white drawings of all things Japanese. The students could color and cut them out to display on a Japanese interactive bulletin board with vocabulary. The Smartboard Exchange has adorable animated characters who perform the tea ceremony interactively with the students correcting etiquette as it goes along. Students could explore literature about sharing tea in such books as Tea Ceremony by Shozo Sato, The Way We Do It In Japan by Geneva Cobb Iijima, and I Live in Tokyo by Mari Takabayashi. The culminating activity could be students entering the classroom without their shoes and sharing pretend tea with a partner mimicking the actions of adults actually sharing. Then they could sip real tea and eat some Japanese snacks such as Pocky, Pretz, or Kit Kats.

Chanoyu has been an integral part of the Japanese cultural fabric since the 12th century C.E. This curriculum unit is another strong performance by the folks at SPICE. As always the Unit is well researched and well laid out. There are Five Lessons available for teachers to use. While they could all be used as part of a single unit, doing so may become repetitive. I am not sure that there are many classes where this unit plan could be implemented in its entirety.
Lesson one provides a brief introduction to tea which is very helpful for most teachers and students who may be unfamiliar with the cultivation and classification of tea. It would have been nice to have a more comprehensive description of how tea is classified and ranked, rather than the single sentence provided here.
Lesson two is perhaps the best in the unit and the most applicable to any level of a World History Course. I think that it works very well in an AP World History course as a means of highlighting global interactions and trade networks.
Lesson three goes into considerably more depth and could reasonably be completed in three days (not the two that SPICE recommends). If you are lucky enough to have a Japan – America Society near you, or an Urasenke tea master nearby I strongly suggest asking them to come and conduct a tea ceremony for your class as a culminating activity. This particular lesson should only be used after a more comprehensive unit on pre-modern Japan. Students will find it much more informative if they already have a strong foundation in Japanese history.
Lesson four provides some nice cross curricular activities with math or tech ed. courses. The images are very nice and provided on the accompanying CD for easy use. One suggestion may be to use this in a introductory level World History course and have students work in groups, with the help of a tech ed. Teacher to build a scale model of tea house. Could be a very engaging lesson.
Lesson five provides some good stories and could yield some great discussions. Could be a good way to integrate the new Reading and Writing standards for Social Studies into the curriculum.

Amy Swartz
Grades 9-12
Courses: AP World History, AP US History, World Cultures, Global Issues, World Religions
Warrior Run High School, Turbotville, PA
Tea and the Japanese Tradition of Chanoyu from the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE) is a well-developed five-lesson curriculum for teachers of middle or high school students. The lessons include the culture of tea, the role of tea world history, the development of chanoyu (tea ceremony) in Japan, the elements of chanoyu and the tearoom, and the transmission and transformation of the tradition of Chanoyu. The curriculum unit contains a 134-page manual, which includes background information for the teacher, lesson plans, student readings, and worksheets. A DVD containing a short film and other visual information to support the lessons is provided.
As with other SPICE materials I have used, this resource reflects quality research and background information, in addition to the development of relevant lessons for students to learn about this essential aspect of Japanese tradition. Students move from familiar interactions with tea and other beverages in their own culture and history, towards a greater sense of appreciation for the spiritual, cultural, reflective, and aesthetic aspects of Japanese culture as represented in the tradition of chanoyu. Many portions of these lessons can easily adapted to support students with learning difficulties.
Portions of this curriculum unit were used with 10th grade AP World History students and 9th grade World Cultures students, many who have learning difficulties. The student readings from lessons one and three were used to provide background information, in addition to visual support provide by a teacher-created PowerPoint. We read and discussed the role of tea in history, the evolution of the tea ceremony from China to Japan, and principles of the ceremony Students created posters or glogs (glogster.com) to represent the four basic principles of chanoyu, harmony, respect, purity, and tranquility, as outlined in lesson three. The following day, I displayed various implements used in the tea ceremony, using the student posters as a backdrop. As the students arrived I distributed cards containing vocabulary and basic information about the tearoom, protocols, or the various utensils used in the ceremony. Using the images in the PowerPoint students presented the information on their cards. Then, we sampled black, green, and matcha teas, and a sweet treat while watching the SPICE DVD film depicting a tea master performing the tea ceremony. Afterwards, students wrote reflections on the purpose and value of the tea ceremony in Japanese culture, and related a similar activity or tradition from their own experiences.