Korean Tea Ceremony

Darye means tea etiquette, and the Korean tradition is defined largely by what it does not do: where the Japanese ceremony is highly codified and the Chinese gongfu style is technical, darye is deliberately unfussy - the aim, as its practitioners describe it, is to make tea naturally and drink it without performance. Its survival is owed to Buddhist monasteries, which kept the practice through the Joseon centuries when Confucian officialdom favoured other things, and to the nineteenth-century monk Choui, who wrote the standing Korean text on tea while living above Daeheungsa. Green tea from Hadong and Boseong is the usual leaf, brewed at lower temperatures than most visitors expect and often in several short infusions. Sessions are available at teahouses in Insadong and Bukchon, at the tea estates, and as part of many templestay programmes, which is where the context makes most sense.

What you actually see

• The plain method - few tools, no fixed choreography.
• The low-temperature brew - short infusions, cooler water.
• The monastic link - the practice kept alive in temples.
• The tea country - Hadong and Boseong, where the leaf comes from.

When to go

Any time; May is the first harvest, when the tea country is at its best. Book teahouse sessions ahead in Seoul, especially at weekends.

Honest expectations

This is a practice, not a place - there is no single venue to visit. Sessions vary widely in seriousness, from a genuine sitting to a fifteen-minute tourist demonstration. Prices in Insadong are tourist-level.

Nearby

Ssanggyesa and the Hwagae valley at Hadong; Boseong's tea terraces; Daeheungsa at Haenam.