Food & Drink
Tea Ceremony Quiz
Chado, gongfu cha, and traditions across Asia โ how well do you know tea ceremonies?
Chado, gongfu cha, and traditions across Asia โ how well do you know tea ceremonies?
Sen no Rikyu, the master who perfected the Japanese tea ceremony, was ordered to commit ritual suicide by the warlord Hideyoshi in 1591. This 50-question deep dive explores chanoyu and its four principles (harmony, respect, purity, tranquility), the three Rikyu schools of Kyoto, Chinese gongfu cha with Yixing purple-clay teapots, Korean darye, Moroccan mint atay, Tibetan butter tea, English afternoon tea, and the botany behind Camellia sinensis.
Each round presents 10 randomized questions from a pool of 50, with four multiple-choice options and instant feedback after every answer. Your final score comes with a performance tier and shareable results.
You'll master the utensils of the Japanese tea room โ chawan, chasen, chashaku, natsume, chaire, mizusashi, kama, hishaku โ and understand the difference between koicha and usucha. You'll learn how the monk Eisai brought matcha from China in 1191, how Rikyu codified the wabi-cha aesthetic, and how the Urasenke, Omotesenke, and Mushakojisenke schools branched from his lineage. You'll travel to Fujian and Chaozhou for gongfu cha, to Marrakech for the three rounds of mint tea, and to the Argentine pampas for mate shared from a gourd.
Chanoyu (่ถใฎๆนฏ, 'hot water for tea') is the Japanese tea ceremony, also called chado or sado ('the Way of Tea'). It is a highly choreographed ritual of preparing and serving matcha in a tea room, perfected in the 16th century by Sen no Rikyu.
The four principles of chanoyu, codified by Sen no Rikyu, are wa (harmony), kei (respect), sei (purity), and jaku (tranquility). Together they form the spiritual foundation of the Way of Tea.
Gongfu cha (ๅๅคซ่ถ, 'tea made with skill') is the Chinese tea ceremony, originating in Chaozhou and Fujian. It uses small Yixing purple-clay teapots and tiny cups for repeated short steepings of oolong or pu-erh.
Last updated: April 2026