JAPANESE TEA HISTORY

A Short History of Tea

The discovery of tea is steeped in legend and there are quite a few stories. One of Den's favorite legends is a story of Emperor Shen Nong in the 28th century BC, China. He was a scholar and the father of Chinese herbal medicine. During his journeys through hills and fields and ate 72 different kinds of plants to find out whether they were medicine or poison. The legend said that he took tea whenever he felt he was poisoned. Although we don't know if he ate a tea leaf or drank a liquid, it's interesting that "tea" began as a medicine.

In Japan, tea culture was brought from China in the 8th century. At that time, Japanese Buddhist monks were studying religion and the latest cultures in China. Whenever they returned to Japan, many new cultures were introduced, and TEA was one of them.

Eizai was one of the Buddhist monks who loomed large in the spotlight throughout Japanese tea history. Eizai studied in China in the 13th century, and upon his return to Japan he brought a completely new style of tea. The tea was made from steamed raw leaves and then milled by a quern into a powder. This what we now call Matcha. Eizai also wrote a book, "Maintaining Health by Drinking Tea", that was the first book about tea in Japan. When he spread the Rinzai sect that is Zen Buddhism, Matcha was a necessity for Zen training and ceremonies. While the Rinzai sect was spreading to the Samurai and upper classes, the tea drinking habit was doing the same. Over the next several hundred years, tea drinking gradually became entertainment, and the tea ceremony, "SADO", was established as an art culture.

In the 14th century, another Buddhist Monk returning from China also brought back lessons of Chinese tea culture. This monk named Shouichi Kokushi, settled in Honyama, Shizuoka. It was on the choicest lands in Honyama that Shouichi Kokushi spread the tea seeds he carried back from China. Shizuoka has since been referred to as "Tea Town". This was the beginning of tea as the beverage of choice for the Japanese people.

Sencha was "invented" in 1738 by a farmer in Kyoto who added the extra step of kneading the steamed leaves to the manufacturing process. The kneading breaks down the fibers in the tea leaf allowing for very fast extraction of the ingredients during brewing. The resultant product became very popular in Edo City, present day Tokyo. Then 100 years later, Gyokuro was invented and both teas became popular and spread throughout Japan.

Tea production in Japan started to grow rapidly around the 18th century when Japan started to export tea to the western countries. Tea exporting became a prosperous business after Japan opened the country to the world in the 18th century, and the USA was the biggest importer of Japanese green tea at that time.

Because of rapid domestic economic growth in 20th century Japan, the Japanese started to consume more tea domestically than they exported. Today Japan produces about 69,800 tons(2020) of tea a year with 99% of it being green teas. Worldwide, Japan is the 8th largest producer of tea and the 3rd largest green tea producer. The consumption of green tea per capita in Japan is 650 grams which means the Japanese are the best green tea lovers in the world.

The following are some interesting dates in tea history:

• BC 59: The first written references to tea appears in a Chinese document.
• 800's: Tea and tea seeds were brought from China by Japanese Buddhist monks.
• 1300's: Eizai, a Buddhist monk, brought Tencha (Matcha) from China and wrote a milestone book - "Maintaining Health by Drinking Tea"
• 1500's: Sado (tea ceremony) was completely developed.
• 1738: Sencha was invented.
• 1836: Gyokuro was invented.
• 1904: Richard Blechynden created iced tea at the St. Louis World Fair.
• 1908: Thomas Sullivan "invented" tea bags in New York, sending tea to clients in silk bags, which they mistakenly steep without opening.
• 1923: Shirakata Denshiro Shoten Inc., parent company to Den's Tea, begins operations.
• 2000: Den's Tea opens in Southern California.