I first heard about this book when Nicole at Tea for Me Please wrote a review on it. Since scholarly works don’t scare me, I decided to download the free ebook and give it a go.

Cultivating Femininity makes the case that women have been involved in the tea ceremony as far back as Edo-period Japan, but that their presence is often overlooked as they may have been marginalised in the largely-male dominated tea world.

The argument basically goes like this: while women did not have official positions in many tea school, they would have attended tea ceremonies as guests. Hence, at least some women would have had basic knowledge of the tea ceremony. That’s chapter one. From chapter two onwards, the book uses tea guides, sugoroku games, and general guides for women to show how the tea ceremony became a way for women to learn etiquette and grace.

For me, the most interesting parts of the book was Chapter Three, which discussed why some commoner-class women would want to learn the tea ceremony. The book points out that status is given to units of organisation (by this point, the ie system would have been the default), which mean that women would assume the status of her husband’s household. This made upward social mobility for women much easier (compared to men). Learning about tea was one way that commoner-class women could learn etiquette, which would prepare them for service in a noble family (being in service in a noble family was also seen as a way for these women to learn etiquette, a sort of paid finishing-school/job).

The book ends with Japan in the Meiji era, where tea had been feminised to the point where it was something recommended to women (although it should still be noted that the heads of the tea schools are invariably male). Because of this, I find that this book works as a complement to Making Tea, Making Japan by Kristin Surak, which is a slightly broader look at the role that the tea ceremony has played in Japanese culture.

I can’t lie, this book is pretty academic in tone and is not the easiest thing to read. But if you’re interested in the Japanese tea ceremony, you should consider picking up this book because it fills in a gap in the way the tea ceremony has been viewed. Plus, the ebook is free so why not, right?