Norbu Tea - History of Tea in Japan: Origins & Preparation Methods

Japanese Tea - History

Japanese Tea: Overview/History

The origins of tea in Japan are inextricably linked to the spread of Buddhism from

By 不明 (藝術新潮1974年 10号　増大特集日本の肖像画) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Saicho
Great Teacher and Transmitter of the Dharma
Founder of Tendai School of Buddhism

China to Japan. During China's Tang Dynasty, sometime around 801 CE, a monk named Saicho returned to Japan after studying at the major monastery on Tiantai Mountain in what is now China's Zhejiang province. By this time, regular consumption of tea was widespread in China's many centers of Buddhist learning simply because it helped the monks stay awake and focused during prolonged periods of meditation. Upon his return from China, Saicho founded a Buddhist temple just outside of Kyoto, which became the center of the very influential Tendai sect of Japanese Buddhism. Saicho is also credited with bringing the first tea seeds back to Japan, and these seeds were used to start Japan's first tea gardens. The Kyoto region (Uji in particular) is still a major center of tea production today.

By User PHG on en.wikipedia [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Myoan Eisai
First of Japanese Zen Masters
Founder of Rinzai School of Zen Buddhism

Even though tea had been cultivated and consumed in Japan since China's Tang Dynasty at the beginning of the 9th century CE, tea drinking did not become widespread in Japan until China's Song Dynasty in the late 12th/early 13th centuries. In 1191 CE, a monk named Myoan Eisai returned to Japan with Zen teachings and, of course, tea seeds after studying Chan (Chan in Chinese = Zen in Japanese) Buddhism in mainland China. Eisai spent much of the rest of his life spreading & teaching Zen Buddhism in Japan's main political & cultural centers of the time, Kyoto and Kamakura.

In addition to being the "father" of Japanese Zen Buddhism, Eisai was also the first truly vocal advocate for the consumption of tea in Japan. As he put it, "Tea is the most wonderful medicine for nourishing one's health; it is the secret of long life. On the hillsides it grows up as the spirit of the soil. Those who pick and use it are sure to attain a great age…In the great country of China they drink tea, as a result of which there is no heart trouble and people live long lives. Our country is full of sickly-looking, skinny persons, and this is simply because we do not drink tea. Whenever one is in poor spirits, one should drink tea. This will put the heart in order and dispel all illness." (Gunsho Ruiju, Vol XV). As can be seen in the preceding quotation, tea and health have been closely linked in Japanese culture ever since widespread tea consumption was promoted by Eisai in the 13th century. Right up until today, many health claims (only some of which have been substantiated by science) are made about tea, and it is interesting to see the roots of these claims in Japan dating to the 13th century writings of a Buddhist monk.

Methods of Preparation:

Brick Tea

Tea from China and Japan has not always been prepared by steeping leaves in a bowl or pot, the way it is done in modern culture. During the Tang dynasty, when tea was brought to Japan for the first time, tea was sold in brick form. The Tang way of making tea was to boil pieces of tea bricks with all kinds of different ingredients including salt, spices, rice, etc, making a sort of savory tea soup or porridge if rice or grain was used. Remnants of the Tang custom of making tea can be found in modern Mongolia and Tibet, in salted butter or milk teas made from boiled brick tea, and this early method of tea preparation is also alive in certain parts of Japan, where tea porridges are fairly commonplace, although the manufacture and use of "Dancha," or brick tea in these porridges is not common at all except in outlying areas.

Matcha (Powdered Green Tea)

During the Song Dynasty, when tea was brought to Japan for the second time by the great Zen Master Eisai, tea drinking customs in China had changed significantly. The custom of the time was to grind tea leaves into a fine powder in a stone mill, and the powder was mixed with water in a tea bowl and whipped into a froth with a bamboo whisk before it was consumed. This method of preparing whipped tea was enhanced and codified over the next several hundred years and it evolved into a sort of spiritual and aesthetic "way of tea" based in Zen Buddhism. By about the 17th century, the methods and specific steps involved in preparing and serving tea in the correct way, in the proper environment, with proper formality and etiquette by the host and guests was fully codified into the many very specific methods or Schools of "Chanoyu" (The Way of Tea) that are still alive and thriving in Japan today.

Sencha w/ Modern Banko Kyusu (teapot)

After the fall of the Mongolian-ruled Yuan Dynasty in 1368, the custom of drinking tea in China shifted to drinking the infusions of whole, processed tea leaves that had been steeped in boiled water. Sometime during the late 1600s, these less elaborate "steeped tea" preferences of Chinese immigrants started to be adopted by Japanese tea enthusiasts, leading to the eventual spread of Sencha (literally translates as "boiled tea") throughout Japan. A little known fact is that another Japanese Tea Ceremony grew up around drinking sencha in the mid 18th century, known as Sencha-Do. For those interested in a fairly recent study of the influence of Sencha-Do practitioners and their followers on the arts and culture of modern Japan, "Tea of the Sages: The Art of Sencha" by Patricia J. Graham is a wonderful resource in English language.