The Tea Ceremony

Juko took tea out of the shoin study, but it was Joo who finalised a humble teahut (as distinct from the finer teahouse), of just 4.5 mats. However, even at this size, there was ample space for showing off antiques or other treasures, and this displeased Rikyu, who advocated an empty teahut, reduced to just two mats. This represented the most reduced sort of wabi space. The hut should have a thatched roof and pointed eaves; the walls will be mud and the pillars in-bark and unsmoothed. It is perfect wabi. In ancient times, there had been the religious impulse to flee the Ôfloating worldÕ and live in the mountains in a rustic hut Ð a kind of space removed from worldly cares. The teahut captures this sense, but while remaining within the city itself.
After Hideyoshi won the Battle of Yamazaki, he constructed a small two-mat hut, very like the famous Tai-an, in the ÔrusticÕ (yamazato) enceinte of Osaka Castle. This was intended to capture the pure, fresh sense of the countryside. Rikyu took the reduced-scale hut to its limit.