Speaker at the UC Davis Global Tea Initiative for Tea Culture and Science inaugural colloquium: “Tea and People” on May 12, 2016. Dr. Kristin Surak is a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and an associate professor of Japanese Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Her book, "Making Tea, Making Japan: Cultural Nationalism in Practice," received the Outstanding Book Award from the American Sociological Association’s Section on Asia. She outlines the formal elements of the Japanese tea ceremony and also offers some surprises about its history.