The Asia Tea Society's goal is to promote the rich tea cultures of Korea, Japan and Okinawa through education. The Society offers tea ceremony lessons, workshops, performances and occasionally invites Asian tea masters and tea ware potters to America. It is the founder's wish that, by practicing the serene tea rituals, we can see and appreciate beauty in nature, in our daily life and in people we encounter.

Asia Tea Society was founded by a tea practitioner and potter, Eunkyung Na, in March 2007. A native of Seoul, Korea, Mrs. Na has lived in the states for many years. She returned to Asia in 1998 giving up the business she ran for many years in New York and Miami. While living in Japan and Korea, she was enchanted by the elegant tea ceremonies she attended and beautiful art and craft, especially ceramics, which appeared in the ceremonies. For four years, she intensively studied the Korean, Japanese and Okinawan Bukubuku (foam tea) tea ceremonies and pottery-making in eight Asian cities. As tea ceremony is an integrated art that involves Zen Buddhism, architecture, landscape and gardening, ceramics, painting and calligraphy, flower arrangement, textiles, costumes and even manners and etiquettes, Mrs. Na traveled extensively in Asia to visit tea related historic sites, tea houses, tea gardens, tea museums, tea farms and visited many famous potters' studios and old kiln sites as well. Mrs. Na wrote articles about these topics and contributed regularly to a tea magazine published in Korea. She also translated a Japanese book about a Korean potter who was kidnapped to Japan by invading Japanese army in 16 th century into Korean. The potter later opened a famous Hagi kiln in Japan.

Since returning to America, she initiated and taught tea programs for Continuing Education at Amarillo College in Amarillo, Texas and Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida. Mrs. Na is also a working ceramic artist.

Related articles:

An Interview with Eunkyung Na. Eckerd College, Winter 2007. www.eckerd.edu

The Universe in a Cup. Amarillo Globe News, May 23, 2004. www.amarillo.com