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Zen and Tea Learning

Text and Images from Slide

A tea certificate with its holder. The holder is made of two pieces of bare paulownia wood with Japanese writing done vertically on the surface in ink. The case has a brown ribbon with a green edge tied around the center. The certificate itself is inside a white, rectangular envelope made of folded Japanese paper. It has black Japanese script written vertically upon it. The paper certificate can be sandwiched between the two wood boards of the case for preservation.

A Tea Certificate from the Urasenke Tea Lineage

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Lecture Notes

Although the term may have first been applied to schools of ancient court music in Heian (794-1185) times, the iemoto (family lineages specializing in the arts) started awarding certificates in the middle of the eighteenth century. From that time on, the word iemoto has also been applied to the system of licensing the teaching of a Japanese traditional art.