When rock tea meets ANT: an experimental reading

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper follows a flat ontology of actor network theory to trace the social as an interconnected web of relations that do not necessarily cohere. Tea is an essential actant in the tea ceremony, but tea itself is its own web. This paper works with both the concept and the empirical case (tea) of materiality, trying to bring them into conversation. I propose an empirical-theoretical assemblage that does not follow a linear and smooth explanatory narrative. It aims to provide one among many webs of relations connected to tea: how the making process of tea affects the taste of tea, which is a complicated process involving human and non-human factors; the aging process of tea, which speaks to the agentic quality of object; how the taste of tea affects people’s emotional and affective state. The competing theoretical discourses on materiality are brought together by the ANT approach and the specific associations of tea enrich our understanding of the theoretical literatures and food studies.