#197 in Classics
The Book of Tea
- 70
- Pages
- about 1.5 h
- Reading time
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Our view
Okakura Kakuzō’s “The Book of Tea” is a short, elegant essay that uses the tea ceremony to explain Japanese aesthetics to the West. Some readers enjoy its wit and its pointed asides on Western caricatures of “the East”; others find it loosely structured and expected more about tea itself than about history, architecture and flowers. Barely seventy pages long, it is a good companion for anyone curious about Japanese culture.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Book of Tea by Okakura Kakuzō is a long 1906 essay linking the role of chadō (teaism) to the aesthetic and cultural aspects of Japanese life and protesting Western caricatures of "the East".
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.7 across 72 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 33% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Classics average of 7.7. That is how 7.7 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.6 | 13 | 18% |
| Hardcover | 7.5 | 59 | 82% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Book of Tea?
It has 70 pages — shorter than 97% of the ranked books in Classics.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Classics — and a score of 7.7, the closest to this book.
