This is how I make tea.
The portforio of aiko yajima, who is a "teaist".
My Works: What I do on a daily basis
Keep Saying "This is also Tea"
Teaist
Since 10th January 2014 - present
・She makes tea with different sweets and tea bowls respectively on a daily basis.
・She updates her tea online every day both in Japanese and English.
・She makes tea online but recently has begun to make tea offline too.
Instagram
Official Instagramer from "Snaplace Talent (Instagram consultant company)"
CONTENTS
・Representation of taking photos
・Model
・Commodity Research (Japanese sweets, ceramics, tea utensils, etc.)
・PR Posts etc.
Snaplace Talent provides a Japanese site only, so send me a message directly.Researcher
Pioneer of young tea practitioners since No one studies it
・The only researcher (in the world) for avant-garde tea practitioners in their 20's-30's.
・In her theses, she did the interview with contemporary tea practitioners
・She has done fieldwork in their avant-garde tea ceremonies all over Japan.
Virtual Roquro
・PC and 3D printer enable you to make ceramics ANYWHERE.
・She supervises how VR tea bowls can be developed
・VR is used at junior high schools in Fukushima. Somehow she made tea for the minister of Reconstruction Agency.
Speciality: Contemporary Tea Ceremony
Master's Degree in Cultural Anthropology
Tea beyond Tradition: Young Working Tea Practitioners and the Expansion of the Tea Ceremony (2017)
Summary: The previous studies of tea practitioners in the Heisei period have attempted to reveal the value of the tea ceremony by answering the question, “Why do people attend a tea school?” In this paper, however, the major informants are not only tea students but also they are young working people or former office workers, in their twenties and thirties. The tea ceremony in this restless age connotes how tea practitioners agonize over “their own life” and, concurrently, how their struggles characterize the ways of tea in the 2010s.
Publishments
thesis in English will be published in 2021
The summary of my thesis in Japanese was published in an academic journal at the end of March 2018. It is available on a website (PDF in Japanese).
The English summary is already available on Medium: See the Summary 1 first.The latest thesis in English are written with my advisor and plans to be published in 2021.
Me, Elsewhere
Once-daily tea. More and earlier posts on Instagram.
Who I am: I'm a teaist.
What's the teaist? I'd like you to read "The Book of Tea" written by Tenshin Okakura.
aiko yajima
Teaist Belonging to PAKUPAKUAN
Born in 1992, Aichi.
Graduated from the graduate school of International Christian University, Tokyo, Japan.
She calls herself “teaist”.
She gained a master degree in Cultural Anthropology and studied about contemporary tea practitioners who make tea outside of tea ceremony schools.
The master thesis was published in the academic journal, “Asian Culture Studies”.
She has also published the full text of the thesis online, which is still spread now.
She has energetically maintained her activities out of the tea ceremony world: Such as tea serving to the minister of Reconstruction Agency, she has held tea parties with tea bowls made by “Virtual Roquro” (Online pottery wheel system with a motion sensor and a 3D printer).
Through current tea practitioners' study and daily tea photos taken at home, she keeps saying “This is also tea” as her lifework. She talks about this idea in the TED talk.She was engaged in an IT company as a project manager while keeping to upload her own tea online, but she decided to change the place to show her tea: She started to belong to PAKUPAKUAN in March 2019. Based on the theme of her master’s thesis, “Making tea while working”, she aims to be one of the case study of office worker as a “teaist” by herself.
She is totally not interested in asserting “This is just the tea”, and always keeps saying “This is ALSO tea” while seeking new ways of tea not only matcha.
What's in Your Cup?
I always read all messages while appreciating.
Copyright 2018