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Panyaro - the Korean Way of Tea
In Japan, the Way of Tea has become a very rigidly codified Tea
Ceremony
of
immense complexity. Commercial institutes instruct housewives in
each minute
gesture at great expense, and the spontaneity of simple human
companionship
that the samurai valued in the ceremony is submerged under layers
of ritualism.
In Korea this has not happened.
Koreans feel that it is very important to
remain natural while drinking
tea together. At first the different steps may seem complicated,
but it
does not take long to master them and for the drinking of tea,
alone or
with others, to become a part of life. There is no end to the
list of benefits
attaching to the drinking of green tea. It is good for you in
almost every
way, unless you drink too much of it on an empty stomach, when
it can be
irritating.
Yet more than its health benefits, there is
the dimension related to
the Spirit of Tea, a 
quasi-religious
dimension typified by the name of the tea made by Chae
Won-hwa:Panya-ro,
the 'Dew of Enlightening Wisdom'. In Korea, the tea revival
initiated by
the Venerable Hyodang has had
a great impact. The Venerable Hyo
Dang, Ch'oi Pom-sul, might be considered to be "the Ch'o Ui of
the 20th
century," for he wrote the first full length study of tea to be
published
in modern Korea and taught many people about the various aspects
of tea.
He was a remarkable man: active in the Independence Movement, he
founded
several schools and a university after 1945, as well as being
the teacher
of virtually all the leading figures in the modern Korean tea
revival.
There are now tea rooms in most cities and even quite small
towns, there
are innumerable tea study groups and research centres,
several reviews
exist consecrated entirely to the various aspects of tea culture
and the
Way of Tea.
There are a number of very famous tea
masters, who give regular
lectures. One of the most important of these is Chae Won-hwa.
She
studied history at Yonsei University and soon became interested
in the
history of Korean thought. It was while she was preparing her
final graduation
thesis that she first met the Venerable Hyo Dang. In the ten
years that
followed she learned from him every detail of the Way of Tea as
well as
the method of making the tea he called Panyaro (The Dew
of Wisdom).
After his death in 1979 she remained as his
recognized successor. In
1981 she launched a study- association devoted to the Panyaro
Way of Tea
with a small number of like-minded associates. In 1983, the Panyaro
Institute
for the Way of Tea (see below) was launched in a
room
in Seoul's Insa-dong (Tel. (82) 02 737 8976) and since then she
has instructed
hundreds of persons in the Way, including all the leading Korean
masters
of tea. Several years ago she went back to Yonsei University and
did a
Master's degree, writing her dissertation about Tea.
She is recognized as Great Tea Master and was
honoured by being included
among the six hundred exemplary and notable citizens of Seoul
whose names
were placed in a time capsule buried on Namsan on November 29,
1994 to
mark the 600th anniversary of the founding of the Choson Dynasty
with Hanyang
(now Seoul) as its capital. In another four hundred years, the
capsule
is destined to be opened and the citizens recalled, on the
1000th anniversary
of the city. We cannot know what will be the standing of tea in
the world
of that time, but it is good that one of modern Korea's greatest
tea masters
should be among those whose names will be transmitted to distant
posterity.
Fuller texts about Panyaro : In
English and in
French.
(You may need to use MS Explorer for the French characters,
perhaps)
A full account of the life of the
Venerable Hyodang
Contact:
Panyaro Institute for the Way of Tea
Gahoi-dong 31-39, Jongno-gu, Seoul 110-260, Korea
Tel: 82-2-763-8486; Fax: 82-2-737-8976
email: panyaro@naver.com
Internet: http://myhome.naver.com/panyaro
(only in Korean)
Photographs
of Panyaro tea being made in May 2000, near the temple called
Tasol-sa,
where the Venerable Hyodang lived and developed his practice of
tea.
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