“The tea room itself, for example, embodies pure sabi-wabi:

‘The tea hut is extremely bare and almost devoid of color. IF a flower is arranged in a vase, it is usually a single, small blossom of some quiet hue or white. The tea utensisls are not of exauisite porcelain but of coarse pottery, often a dull brwon or black and imperfectly formed. The dettle may be a little rusty. Yet from these objects we receive an impression not of gloominess or shappiness but one of quet harmony and peace. . . .’”

—Dorinne Kondo, in the endnotes of The Way of Tea: A Symbolic Analysis, quoting Sources of Japanese Tradition, 1958; from Empire of the Senses: The Sensual Culture Reader, edited by David Howes, 2005.