Uploaded September 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 hours ago
Women’s participation is often excluded in discussions of chanoyu history, but research has shed light on how women were involved in both the practice and production of tea culture in Japan from at least the mid-eighteenth century. In this talk, Rebecca Corbett gives examples of Buddhist nuns who crafted their own tea utensils in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, discusses what we know of commoner and samurai women’s tea practice in the Edo period (1600–1868), and introduces new research about Western women who practiced chanoyu and, in some cases, wrote about it and collected tea utensils in Meiji Japan (1868–1912).
This program was part of the online series Perspectives on Japanese Tea Practice, which brought together various experts on Japanese tea practice, called chanoyu, to explore its evolution from the past into the present: https://asia.si.edu/whats-on/events/event-series/perspectives-on-japanese-tea-practice/
The series was held in conjunction with the current exhibition Reasons to Gather: Japanese Tea Practice Unwrapped: https://asia.si.edu/whats-on/exhibitions/reasons-to-gather/
Rebecca Corbett received her PhD from the University of Sydney (2009) and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University (2013–15). Currently, she is Japanese studies librarian and senior lecturer in history at the University of Southern California. Her book Cultivating Femininity: Women and Tea Culture in Edo and Meiji Japan (University of Hawai’i Press, 2018) analyses privately circulated and commercially published texts to show how chanoyu tea practice for women was understood, articulated, and promoted from the eighteenth through early twentieth centuries. Her current research explores the history of Western engagement with chanoyu in the Meiji period (1868–1912).
Women’s participation is often excluded in discussions of chanoyu history, but research has shed light on how women were involved in both the practice and production of tea culture in Japan from at least the mid-eighteenth century. In this talk, Rebecca Corbett gives examples of Buddhist nuns who crafted their own tea utensils in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, discusses what we know of commoner and samurai women’s tea practice in the Edo period (1600–1868), and introduces new research about Western women who practiced chanoyu and, in some cases, wrote about it and collected tea utensils in Meiji Japan (1868–1912).
This program was part of the online series Perspectives on Japanese Tea Practice, which brought together various experts on Japanese tea practice, called chanoyu, to explore its evolution from the past into the present: https://asia.si.edu/whats-on/events/event-series/perspectives-on-japanese-tea-practice/
The series was held in conjunction with the current exhibition Reasons to Gather: Japanese Tea Practice Unwrapped: https://asia.si.edu/whats-on/exhibitions/reasons-to-gather/
Rebecca Corbett received her PhD from the University of Sydney (2009) and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University (2013–15). Currently, she is Japanese studies librarian and senior lecturer in history at the University of Southern California. Her book Cultivating Femininity: Women and Tea Culture in Edo and Meiji Japan (University of Hawai’i Press, 2018) analyses privately circulated and commercially published texts to show how chanoyu tea practice for women was understood, articulated, and promoted from the eighteenth through early twentieth centuries. Her current research explores the history of Western engagement with chanoyu in the Meiji period (1868–1912).
