How Matcha Reached Japan

Powdered tea arrived in the early Kamakura period.

1191: Eisai returns from China

The monk Eisai, returning from Song China, brought back the method for producing tencha and the practice of drinking powdered tea.

He later wrote Kissa Yojoki, covering cultivation and the effects of tea — the first Japanese text on the subject.

From Toganoo to Uji

Eisai encouraged Myoe Shonin, of Kozanji temple at Toganoo, to take up cultivation. That became one of the origin points of Japanese tea growing.

Myoe then sought land better suited to tea and selected Uji, where deep river mist and the local climate favored the plant.

Uji started out unranked

In the early hierarchy, Toganoo tea was designated honcha — true tea — while Uji was classed as hicha, everything else.

A tea-tasting game of the period asked participants to distinguish Toganoo tea from all others. Uji sat in the "others" category.

That changed in the Muromachi period. Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, the third shogun, extended patronage to Uji tea and around 1390 had tea gardens established there — the Uji Shichimeien, seven famed gardens.

Backed by the shogunate, Uji became recognized as the country's foremost production area.

Shaded cultivation develops

The technique of covering fields to block sunlight was developed in Uji.

Both tencha, the leaf behind matcha, and gyokuro are grown this way. In Uji, covers still hide the bushes from view between April and May.

Cultivars followed

Selected from native stock around Uji: Samidori, Asahi, Gokou, Ujihikari. All chosen for how they respond to shading.

Yabukita, Japan's most widely planted cultivar, comes from Shizuoka and suits sencha — but its leaves carry a yellowish cast and do not darken well under cover, making it poorly suited to tencha.

Sweetening came much later

Everything above concerns matcha. Sweetened powder appears more than seven centuries afterward, in the twentieth century.