01/09/2026
I’ve spent the past few months deep inside Korean historical databases, library archives, academic research, and records of tea culture — preparing to present Korean Darye (다례).
The more I study, the harder it becomes to describe Darye as simply “the Korean tea ceremony.” Across centuries, tea appeared in different forms: in hospitality, ritual, offerings, relationships, and social exchange.
The form changed.The people changed.
The context changed. But something continued underneath it all.
A way of expressing respect, relationship, and social order through tea.
This is part of a cultural tradition that generations before us carried for centuries, and one that we now have a responsibility to understand, preserve, and pass on.
What moves me most is realizing that a culture with roots reaching back around 1,300 years has travelled through countless generations and somehow reached me today.
The gestures, values, and meanings that people practiced so long ago are still here — in our hands, in the way we prepare tea, and in the way we share it with another person.
That makes me want to protect this culture even more, and to help carry it forward in a way that the next generation can still understand and feel.
And perhaps that is why the work I do with tea feels more precious to me now.
It is no longer only about serving tea.
It is about carrying something forward that was passed down to us.
