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“Tsuruko” follows Tsuruko Hanzawa, a Kyoto-based tea ceremony master and kaiseki chef, and her work through a year in her life. For her life and her work, Tsuruko takes great inspiration from Japan’s nature and the deep wisdom of plants, and so the photographs show not only the dishes and teas that she creates but focuses more closely on the delicate beauties of nature that may reveal themselves only to those who stop to observe and listen to their whispers. The serenity of Tsuruko’s practice as a tea ceremony master and chef finds expression in the almost meditative experience that unfolds on each page as the year passes through its four seasons.

The end of the book includes afterwords by the photographer Kazuya Sudo and Tsuruko Hanzawa as well as an overview of recipes and herb teas created during the production of the book. All texts included in English and in Japanese.

“With no thought of yesterday or tomorrow, each dish represents a vibrant, in-the-moment life that I encountered and scooped up that very morning. If opening this book allows you even a glimpse of the unspoken but unmistakable pulse of life flowing from each plant, my work has been a great success.”
― from Tsuruko Hanzawa’s afterword