Wabi-Sabi

Look up the definition of wabi-sabi, and you'll likely be met with the following:

• Wabi: lonely and remote living, a natural state, with associated simplicity. Also "emptiness", in terms of poetry.
  
  
  
• Sabi: aging, worn, threadbare - yet solid. Poverty and humbleness.

There is no shortage of rhubarb that has been written about wabi-sabi, usually by interior designers - much like China's feng shui. It would be a great shame if these potentially interesting concepts were dismissed as being little more than pseudo-psychology for drapers.

What does all this have to do with tea? I mention it because the wabi-sabi concept is something that Lei and I often refer to when making decisions - usually about items we are considering to buy. Invariably, this affects our purchases of tea and tea equipment.

One of the tenets of the wabi-sabi philosophy is that one should live simply, cleanly, and in an uncluttered manner. It is the guiding aesthetic in Japanese culture, where "less is more". It's probably the antithesis of traditional Chinese culture, in which generally ornate and busy private lives are still the norm for the middle and upper classes. The public display of one's wealth has always been a very Chinese characteristic. The Japanese and English cultures, generally speaking, do not approve of such displays, tending to consider them an indication of nouveau riche.

This means that our home is... simple. While not exactly barren, it is certainly markedly different to the majority of our friends' homes. We have no television. We constantly prune our ever-growing book collections, and keep the local charity shops adequately stocked with our discarded clothes. I fully understand that this way of life isn't for everyone, but when I look around the packed lounge of my family home, with every horizontal surface occupied with little treasures, and every inch of wall space covered with portraits and paintings, it certainly seems more healthy than the alternatives. For us, at least. I hasten to add that we are very much "anti-consumer culture", and so wabi-sabi living is a good fit.

With tea, we have been less careful. Recently, we realised this, and turned our attention to our tea shelves. One of the charming points about wabi-sabi living is that whatever remains should be of solid, good quality, and for some definite purpose. Why buy cheap clothes that last a season (as is now highly popular in England) when paying a little bit more from a serious tailor will provide a decade's use, and look more robust and more pleasant into the bargain? Looking over our tea shelves, it became clear that there was much that was either:

• cheap
• useless
• cheap and useless

Some of the beauties in the photograph below illustrate my point.


While none of them are really bad, per se, they are all redundant, and not entirely pleasing in some way. We have kept them "just in case", which is a very dangerous mentality. Packing them off to the local charity shop feels as if a burden is being lifted - and at least the charity can make some money by re-selling them.

We've also rationalised our teapot collection. It used to consist of pots for every conceivable type of tea, many of which we never touched. They literally just sat around collecting dust. Furthermore, at least half of the pots were purchased from Internet vendors. The other half were hand-picked from shops in Maliandao. The difference in quality between the two types is like Heaven and Earth. So, we packed off the Internet pots, and now have a fine collection of pleasant pieces (8 or so), all of which are used quite frequently. Combined with giving away lots of our old untouched tea, it's a good start, and feels a lot more healthy.

Every time I look down the list of teas at my favourite vendors' web-pages, I restrain my hand and tell myself, "You really don't have to own them all."

To lessen the burden of ownership is one of the greatest challenges of living a modern life.

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Further reading of a decent standard can be found in The Wabi-Sabi House, by Robyn Griggs Lawrence. It's not as dreadful as the title would suggest, and is wise in places. It touches on many other aspects of wabi-sabi application than just one's home. Basho, in Penguin Classics, is also a good source of information on the same subject.