From Japan Style by Gian Carlo Calza (2007):
Foremost among the concepts that Asia has passed to the West are those connected with the world of tea—a short word with a vast and complex range of associations. Even though it is part of everyday life, with the attendant dangers of its consumption becoming automatic and taken for granted, it retains an aura of mystery and inscrutability. The introduction of the tea-bag has, of course, made drinking tea a somewhat sterile experience, interposing a barrier that obscures its reality and prevents the full enjoyment of its essence and all its hidden qualities. Yet, even in a crowded, busy bar, tea is not experienced in the same way as an espresso or any other beverage. Even those whose approach to it could not be more down to earth have a reflective air. Of all drinks it is tea that, even in the West, immediately evokes thoughts of private, exclusive and sometimes ritualized consumption. It is as if it has the intrinsic, natural characteristic of inducing a state of its own, creating a break in the routine in which we are submerged, causing us to distance ourselves from our actions and allowing us to contemplate them from a more rarefied dimension where we can grasp the general significance of an act and its true place in our life. We do not feel the same way about coffee, which comes from sunnier, tropical climes and whose purpose seems to be to whip up our psychic energy and stimulate us to engage even more feverishly in what we are doing.
