The History of Japanese Tea
A short version of a long story. Tea has been in Japan for over a thousand years. What’s in your cup today is the result of a chain of monks, merchants, farmers, and one or two stubborn obsessives who wouldn’t let an idea go.
9th century: arrival
Tea reached Japan from Tang China, carried back by Buddhist monks who had studied there. The earliest reliable record is from 815 CE, when the monk Eichu is said to have served tea to Emperor Saga at a temple near Lake Biwa. The court took an interest, briefly, then mostly forgot about it. For nearly four centuries, tea in Japan was a niche import for monasteries and aristocrats.
12th century: Eisai and matcha
The shift came with the monk Eisai, who returned from Song China in 1191 with seeds and a method: Leaves steamed, dried, ground to a fine powder, whisked in hot water. He planted what he’d brought in Kyushu and the hills around Kyoto. He also wrote Kissa Yojoki, a treatise on tea as medicine, which he presented to the shogun in 1214. Powdered tea, what we now call matcha, took root in Zen monasteries and from there into samurai culture.
16th century: the tea ceremony
Over the next few hundred years, the practice of drinking matcha turned into a discipline. Sen no Rikyu, in the late sixteenth century, codified what we now think of as the tea ceremony: small rooms, plain utensils, a deliberate restraint. He worked for two of the most powerful warlords in Japanese history, and one of them eventually ordered him to commit ritual suicide. The aesthetic he left behind, wabi-cha, is still the reference point for formal Japanese tea.
18th century: sencha is invented
For most Japanese people, matcha was something other people drank. Everyday tea was a rougher, browner brew. In 1738, a farmer in Uji named Nagatani Soen spent fifteen years working out a method to produce a green leaf tea that was bright, aromatic, and could be steeped rather than ground. Steam the leaves, roll them by hand over a heated table, dry them. The result was sencha. Within a generation it had spread across the country. Today it is by far the most consumed tea in Japan.
19th century: tea goes abroad
After Japan reopened to foreign trade in the 1850s, tea became one of its main exports. Yokohama, where we are, was the main port through which it left the country. Most of it went to the United States. Production scaled up, machinery replaced hand-rolling, and Japanese tea entered the global market as a commodity.
20th century: regional specialisation
Through the twentieth century, tea-growing in Japan organised itself by region. Shizuoka established itself as the volume leader. Uji kept the prestige. Kagoshima mechanised early and grew fast. Smaller regions, including Miyazaki, focused on quality cultivars and specific styles. Hojicha, originally a way to use lower-grade leaves, was popularised in Kyoto in the 1920s and is now its own category.
Today
Domestic tea consumption in Japan has been falling for years. Younger drinkers reach for bottled drinks or coffee. The growers who survive tend to be the ones who export, the ones who go premium, or the ones who find people willing to take their work seriously. That last category is where we try to be useful.
The History of Japanese Tea
A short version of a long story. Tea has been in Japan for over a thousand years. What’s in your cup today is the result of a chain of monks, merchants, farmers, and one or two stubborn obsessives who wouldn’t let an idea go.
9th century: arrival
Tea reached Japan from Tang China, carried back by Buddhist monks who had studied there. The earliest reliable record is from 815 CE, when the monk Eichu is said to have served tea to Emperor Saga at a temple near Lake Biwa. The court took an interest, briefly, then mostly forgot about it. For nearly four centuries, tea in Japan was a niche import for monasteries and aristocrats.
12th century: Eisai and matcha
The shift came with the monk Eisai, who returned from Song China in 1191 with seeds and a method: Leaves steamed, dried, ground to a fine powder, whisked in hot water. He planted what he’d brought in Kyushu and the hills around Kyoto. He also wrote Kissa Yojoki, a treatise on tea as medicine, which he presented to the shogun in 1214. Powdered tea, what we now call matcha, took root in Zen monasteries and from there into samurai culture.
16th century: the tea ceremony
Over the next few hundred years, the practice of drinking matcha turned into a discipline. Sen no Rikyu, in the late sixteenth century, codified what we now think of as the tea ceremony: small rooms, plain utensils, a deliberate restraint. He worked for two of the most powerful warlords in Japanese history, and one of them eventually ordered him to commit ritual suicide. The aesthetic he left behind, wabi-cha, is still the reference point for formal Japanese tea.
18th century: sencha is invented
For most Japanese people, matcha was something other people drank. Everyday tea was a rougher, browner brew. In 1738, a farmer in Uji named Nagatani Soen spent fifteen years working out a method to produce a green leaf tea that was bright, aromatic, and could be steeped rather than ground. Steam the leaves, roll them by hand over a heated table, dry them. The result was sencha. Within a generation it had spread across the country. Today it is by far the most consumed tea in Japan.
19th century: tea goes abroad
After Japan reopened to foreign trade in the 1850s, tea became one of its main exports. Yokohama, where we are, was the main port through which it left the country. Most of it went to the United States. Production scaled up, machinery replaced hand-rolling, and Japanese tea entered the global market as a commodity.
20th century: regional specialisation
Through the twentieth century, tea-growing in Japan organised itself by region. Shizuoka established itself as the volume leader. Uji kept the prestige. Kagoshima mechanised early and grew fast. Smaller regions, including Miyazaki, focused on quality cultivars and specific styles. Hojicha, originally a way to use lower-grade leaves, was popularised in Kyoto in the 1920s and is now its own category.
Today
Domestic tea consumption in Japan has been falling for years. Younger drinkers reach for bottled drinks or coffee. The growers who survive tend to be the ones who export, the ones who go premium, or the ones who find people willing to take their work seriously. That last category is where we try to be useful.