Award-winning Japanese landscape architect Marc Peter Keane traces the history and design of tea gardens from T'ang China to present day. Almost every Japanese garden is influenced by the tea garden. Drawing on his impressive career of garden construction across the United States and Japan, Marc Peter Keane describes the history, design, and aesthetics of tea gardens, from T'ang China to the present day, with over 115 stunning photographs, floor plans, and illustrations. The most extensive book on this genre ever published in English, The Japanese Tea Garden is a rich resource for garden lovers, historians, and landscape architects. "When Marc Peter Keane describes, with poetry and erudition, the experience of the Japanese garden today, he has no peer." —Leonard Koren, author of  Wabi-Sabi "Marc Peter Keane is the undisputed American master of Japanese garden scholars. . . . Since tea gardens have had a major impact on the design of Japanese gardens in general, this book is a necessary addition to the library of any serious student. The rest of us will enter with humility —mindful of the small door through which one must crawl into the tea room—and sip slowly." — New York Times Sunday Book Review "Impeccably written, erudite without being burdensomely intellectual, what sets Keane’s beautifully measured and considered prose style apart from other garden writers is the carefully created mood of his text, which aspires at times to verbalized contemplation. . . . Likely to remain the standard work on the subject for a very long time to come" —Stephen Mansfield,  Kyoto Journal "An incredibly beautiful and extremely detailed look at one of the world's most transcendent landscape arts." —The Avant Gardener (NY) "For anyone with a serious interest in Japanese gardens this is an essential purchase." —Graham Hardman , Japanese Garden Society (UK) "A thoroughly engaging, insightful observer." — Booklist Marc Peter Keane is a garden designer, artist, and author based in Ithaca NY. Having lived in Kyoto Japan for nearly 20 years, his work is deeply influenced by the aesthetics and culture of Japan. Keane is the author of 7 books including, "Japanese Garden Design" (an introduction to the history and design of Japanese gardens), "The Japanese Tea Garden" (the history, design and aesthetics of the Japanese tea garden), "The Art of Setting Stones" (essays for the philosophical gardener, or the gardening philosopher), and "Dear Cloud" (a meditation on nature from the perspective of a unique traveler). More about his work can be seen at mpkeane.com.