Teiran Tea Utensil Basket

Hayakawa Shōkosai I was the leading bamboo artist of the late 1800s. He made this basket to carry the various utensils used for sencha tea service. In contrast to the older Japanese tea ceremony, which uses powdered green tea, the sencha tea ceremony introduced from China in the Edo period (1603–1868) features green tea leaves soaked—or steeped—in hot water. This practice and its association with Chinese culture was especially popular among Japanese scholarly elites of the 1700s and 1800s, who revered artworks, practices, and ideas sourced from Chinese culture.