Explain About Japan

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　15th June 2025

• This posting is about the history of green tea in Japan and the modern day green tea drinking culture. It also talks about why Japan is suitable for growing green tea plants. It does not talk about the different kinds of green tea in detail. The next posting will talk more about the different types of green tea, how a cup of tea is made and will also touch on the growing methods.

The introduction of green tea to Japan

As with ¹other things in Japan, such as bonsai and chopsticks, Japan took something from China and refined² it. The thing they refined this time was green tea.

The world’s first tea cultivation³ started in China more than two thousand (2000) years ago. Monks went over to China to learn about its culture in the 8th century AD and brought back tea to Japan.

The tea was made from very coarse⁴ tea leaves that were taken from a solid block called a 餅茶 heicha – very different to the type of tea that people drink now.

Although the tea was coarse and not refined like the tea now, tea drinking was something that the common people* didn’t do. Only monks and the nobility⁵ had real access to tea. Tea ceremonies were a part of many Buddhist ceremonies.

* There are many different ways to express the phrase ‛the common people’ and in this posting we’ve tried to express it in a few different ways. These different ways are highlighted in purple.

In the early days it was considered to be medicinal⁶ and spiritual⁷ – something very good for your physical and mental health.

Tea drinking during the Kamakura period

During the Kamakura period, 1185-1333, the tea culture was forbidden for the masses* by the ruling warriors. It was though during this Kamakura period that a monk called 栄西 (Eisai) brought some tea plants back to Japan. The first tea plants in Japan were planted in Kyoto by a monk called 明恵上人 Myōeshonin and green tea cultivation started to spread, although the ordinary people* still didn’t really have access to it.

The warrior classes started to get access to the tea culture however and they had showy⁸ parties playing games that involved tea.

During this time the tea became more refined.

The tea leaves were ground down ⁹ into powder^A when people wanted to brew¹⁰ the tea and the brush called a 茶筅 chasen that is used now to mix matcha in tea ceremonies started to be used to mix the tea powder.

The tea culture during the Muromachi era

The green tea culture really evolved during the Muromachi era – 1336 to 1573. A tea master called 村田珠光 Murata Jukō turned the showy ceremonies of the warriors into a quieter, more rustic¹¹ thing.

This was called wabicha which is connected to wabi-sabi¹².

The tea utensils¹³ he used were plain and rough and imperfect. Imperfect means not perfect.

He wanted to create an understated¹⁴ feeling of beauty. Wabi-sabi includes the meaning of a feeling of melancholy. ¹⁵ The kanji character 侘び (wabi) in wabi-sabi means ‘appreciating simplicity and appreciating a quiet, melancholic feeling’. You can think of it as ‛appreciating understated beauty’. The 寂 (sabi) comes from 寂し(sabishii) which means to ‛feel lonely’. Without green tea would there have been no wabi-sabi?

Muratajukō was influenced by a person called 一休宗純 Ikyūsōjun. Ikyūsōjun believed in not wasting things and finding your inner self. He studied Zen Buddhism and he taught Muratajukō 茶禅一味 chazenichimi which means that the tea ceremony and Zen Buddhism were one and the same^B. ¹⁶ ‛Spiritual’ is the word you might think of.

Tea masters

Tea ceremonies were a big part of the culture. An example of how important it was is that the two shoguns 織田信長 Obu Nobunaga and 豊臣秀吉 Toyotomi Hideyoshi had a tea master – the same one. This tea master was called 千利休 Sennorikyū.

Being a tea master to the Shōguns was a very important job. Sennorikyū believed in a simple and austere¹⁷ kind of tea ceremony like Muratajukō and Ikyūsōjun before him. He wanted narrow entrances for the tea rooms and the tea rooms were small and dimly¹⁸ lit^C.

As well as the quality of the tea improving during the Muromachi period it was also the time when instead of mostly being drunk as a medicine green tea became something to enjoy for its taste.^D

During Sennorikyū’s time as the tea master to the shōguns, sweets became a bigger part of the tea ceremonies. Chestnuts, peaches and せんべい（senbei) rice crackers were among the snacks eaten. It was also in the Muromachi period that yōkan made from sweetened bean paste appeared and 干菓子 (higashi) developed.

From the Muromachi period into the Edo period more and more sugar was imported from places such as Portugal, China and the Netherlands and the sweets became well … sweeter!^E

It seems Sennorikyū had so much influence that Toyotomi Hideyoshi got jealous of him. Sennorikyū was forced to do 切腹 (seppuku) by Hideyoshi. In English seppuku is usually called harakiri.

As for tea ceremony schools¹⁹ there are now three main schools which were all started by grandsons of Sennorikyū.
The schools are called 表千家 Omotesenke, 裏千家 Urasenke and 武者小路千家 Mushakōjisenke. The rules for 裏千家 Urasenke are less rigid²⁰ than the other two schools and it is the school with the most members. The rules are mainly connected to how you sit or how you use the utensils.

Green tea from the Edo period until the modern day

It was during the Edo period that 煎茶 sencha, which is the most common green tea in modern Japan, first appeared. Although the commoners* had more access to green tea it wasn’t until machines enabled mass production of tea at the end of the Taishō period into the Shōwa period that tea really became available to the average person*^F

Most people do not just drink green tea while doing tea ceremonies and most rarely²¹ do tea ceremonies. Up until the end of the 20th century green tea was usually drunk at home or in restaurants and hotels and it was made from loose tea using tea pots or people used tea bags in cups.

Some people also made one or litres of tea at home, including green tea, which they kept in the fridge and then put in a water bottle and took to work or school, usually drinking it cold. When thinking about how much carbonated drinks are drunk in some countries and the health problems it causes, it shows how important tea has been as a part of the culture – a healthy part of the culture.

Quite a lot of people still do make their own tea and put it in water bottles but less now than before. In the 1980’s canned green tea appeared and in the early 1990’s green tea became available in PET bottles, PET bottles meaning plastic bottles.

In 2007 the amount of green tea drunk from PET bottles or cans surpassed²² the amount of green tea that people made using tea bags or loose tea.

Green tea largely has become a ready to drink thing, with the ready to drink tea almost always being in PET bottles. Convenience has become the main factor. The taste of the teas has also became different. Vitamin C is added to the bottled teas to preserve them and the tea is drunk a long time after the actual tea as a liquid is made, which is very different to making a cup of tea and then drinking it a few minutes later as was usually the case in the past.

The advent of green tea in PET bottles has also changed things very much for tea farmers. Bottled green tea is made from tea leaves that are cheaper than the tea leaves that are used to make green tea from loose tea or tea in tea bags and this has had a big impact on the tea growing industry. The tea producing industry is finding it hard to make money.

The general consumption of green tea has decreased despite²³ tea appearing in bottles. One reason for this is the increase in the number of people buying bottled mineral water.^G Due to this reduced demand²⁴ and other factors as well, which include a lack of labour in the tea growing industry and the reduced domestic²⁵ demand, the cultivation area of green tea decreased by 25％ from 2006-2023, even although there was a record high of 22 billion yen made from the export of green tea in 2022.^H The reduced area of land being cultivated is partly linked to the lack of labour and one of the reasons for this is that most young people don’t want to become farmers.

A climate suitable for growing green tea

One reason that green tea has been part of the culture in Japan is that it can be grown in Japan. Certain areas of the country, ‘the country’ meaning the country of Japan not the ‛countryside’, are well suited to tea growing with Shizuoka being the place most associated with green tea production.

As with a lot of Japan, Shizuoka has plenty of rain. It also has a mild climate compared to other places in Japan.

The warm air that comes along with the warm water of the Kuroshio Current²⁶ helps keep the mild temperatures by helping to make sure that there is not a very big difference between summer and winter temperatures.

The warm air coming with the current also means there’s usually enough rain. Tea plants enjoy the rain but they don’t like the cold from the spring to autumn so they’re happy to spend their summer in Shizuoka.

Others factors that aid tea cultivation are the slopes of the hills and the mountains. These slopes provide good drainage and ensure enough wind movement and the many south facing slopes ensure there is enough sunlight in winter.^I Added to this the acid soil that covers most of Japan suits the growing of tea bushes.

Kagoshima Prefecture has also produced a lot of tea over the years and in February 2025 it became the biggest tea producing prefecture in Japan for the first time. As with Shizuoka, Kagoshima has a mild climate and in Kagoshima harvesting can start in April and continues through to the winter meaning there is a long growing season. Shizuoka’s friend, the Kuroshio Current passing by Kagoshima helps maintain this mild climate and the volcanic soils ensure plenty of nutrients for the tea plants, as is the case in Shizuoka.

The main reason that tea production in Kagoshima is increasing compared to Shizuoka though is that there are many flat fields in Kagoshima. The increasing mechanization²⁷ of the harvesting allows for ²⁸ very efficient harvesting²⁹. It is reported that 98％ of the harvesting in Kagoshima is done by big machinery.^J

These big machines can’t go up the mountains and sometimes narrow slopes in Shizuoka but they can go across the flat fields of Kagoshima happily all day.

The future of green tea production in Japan

One thing that affects everything around the world is global warming. It is a fact that growing tea has become more difficult in many places in the world due to extreme heat during the summer causing stress for the tea plants and cold temperatures in April, if it’s the northern hemisphere, following warm March temperatures causing frost³⁰ damage for the plants because the new young leaves are damaged. This was reported to be the case in Shizuoka in 2021.^K

However there are some positives when thinking about the future. Although when thinking about domestic demand the amount of green tea being drunk and produced in Japan is decreasing, people in Japan are still among the top twenty tea drinking countries in the world per capita, with per capita meaning per person.^L Ask the person you see most advertising things in Japan – Shōhei Otani, the baseball player.

What’s he seen advertising most ? It’s the bottled green tea maker, Itoen’s green tea.

As written at the beginning of this article, a lot of the time, Japan gets hold of things and refines them. When thinking about tea, countries such as China and India produce much more tea of any kind than Japan and both countries produce more green tea than Japan. However there is a big demand in the world for high quality green teas, which Japan produces a lot of. There is especially a demand for matcha.

Matcha tea is used for baking and in other types of cooking, as well as being drunk as a drink by itself. The demand is increasing year after year for matcha products. So if Japan is able to produce more tea and maintain the quality, there are many people in the world willing to pay good money for it.

Green tea as a food might help green tea as a drink when thinking about the future of the green tea industry. Would you like some matcha ice-cream or a piece of matcha cake along with your matcha tea?

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References

A nihoncha-magazine.com
B 山年園（Yamanenen）www.e-cha.co.jp
C nextpocket.co.jp 千利休の茶室　(Senrikyū’s tea rooms)
D tea-labo.jp/history-of-japanese-tea
E daisyribbon.com 昔のスイーツ（Sweets of the past)
F tea-labo.jp/history-of-japanese-tea
G www.maff.go.jp/j/seisan/tokusan/cha/attach/pdf/ocha-90.pdf
H www.worldteanews.com/supply-chain/japanese-tea-sector-struggles-find-its-footing (2024.10.11)
I wood-diy-start.com/?p=5172 (2022.12.10)
J www.fnn.jp/articles/-/832458 (2025.2.22)
K www.chikyu.ac.jp/rihn/news/detail/543/ (2025.1.16)
L en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tea_consumption_per_capita (2025.2.18)

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<Example sentences>

1. as with ~
■ As with the meeting yesterday, I had a difficult time in today’s meeting.
■ You should write a letter to your brother, as you did with your mum.

9. rustic
■ The restaurant had a real open fire and big old wooden tables. It felt nice and rustic.
■ Imagine the scene. The little garden with it’s flowers and vegetables in front of the cottage with its thick 　　　 walls made of stone. All very rustic eh?

12. understated
■ Her makeup is understated, which is very different to her sister who always has really strong makeup.
■ The designs on the curtains were lovely and understated.

14. one and the same
■ Are biscuits and cookies one and the same thing?
■ You could say that marketing and branding are one and the same.
■ He looks exactly like the man who lived on that street two years ago but he has a different name. I’m confused. Is he one and the same person?

15. austere
■ My grandparents have an austere lifestyle. They only drink water or tea and never eat out or go on holidays. and .
■ The apartment was austere. There was only one small table in the living room, a small, old cooker and there were no coverings over the lights.
■ She lost her job last year. She’s sold her car, moved house and leads an austere life I’ve heard.

18. rigid
■ Our manager at work is so rigid. He never listens to people and is not interesting in changing anything.
■ You wouldn’t like the rigid dress code if you worked there. You can only wear suits and men have to wear a tie all the time.

20. to surpass ~
■ When she won yesterday she surpassed her big rival for the most number of wins so far this year.
■ I surpassed my personal best in the marathon this summer which of course I’m very happy about.

21. despite ~
■ Despite studying hard I got bad results in the test.
■ He can’t speak any Spanish despite having lived in Spain for over ten years.
■ Despite all the rain the ground is still very dry.

22. demand
■ Demand for ice cream is always high on this type of hot, sunny day in July.
■ The demand for tickets for the concert is amazing. The tickets all sold out only thirty minutes after going on sale online.

26. allow ~ ・allow for ~
A to let something happen. To enable something to be.
B to take extra time or money for something so that you can prepare for something that might happen.

A
■ Wow! This big window allows for a lot of sunlight in winter.
■ The expensive bed and pillow allows me a good night’s sleep.
■ They say the new road will allow for easy access into the town centre.
■ I recommend you buy the bigger rucksack. It will allow you to take your rain gear if you ever need to.

B
■ Please allow for the high parking fees in the city and have enough money ready to pay for them.
■ You should take the early bus to the airport. It will allow for delays if the road is busy.

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■ Do you ever do tea ceremonies?

■ Is there anything you like eating with your tea?

■ I’ve drunk ~ before. ~

■ What do you drink most of the time?

■ Have you ever been to a tea farm?

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■ Do you have tea in plastic bottles in your country?

■ Have you ever had matcha flavoured food?

■ Most of the tea I have is from PET bottles. ~

■ If you go to a cafe what do you drink?

1. In this sentence ‘as with’ means ‛the same as’
2. to ‛refine’something means to make something less rough and more pure and improve it by removing unwanted things.
3. In this sentence ‛cultivation’ means the preparing of land to grow crops on. Crops means a plant grown usually to eat, for example rice or potatoes.
4. In this sentence ‛coarse’ means rough, not smooth or soft.
5. the ‛nobility’ are people in a very high social rank in society because of the family they are born into. They usually own land.
6. ‛Medicinal’ things are ‛things used to treat illnesses’. Think of ‛medicine’.
7. ‛Spiritual’ means ‛something connected to the human soul, something relating to your deep feelings and your beliefs’.
8. ‛showy’ means something is colourful and bright to make people interested in it but is not s

   o beautiful

9. To ‛grind’ something or ‛grind something down’ means to break it down into a powder.
10. To ‛brew’ tea or coffee means to add boiling water to the leaves or powder to make the drink.
11. ‛Rustic’ means that something looks simple and rough, especially when it is connected to the countryside.
12. ‛Wabi-sabi’ means finding beauty in simple things, finding beauty in imperfect things, finding beauty in quietness.Wabi-sabi appreciates the beauty in natural objects.
13. A ‛utensil’ is a tool or other object that you use for preparing food and also eating the food! Examples of utensils include spoons, peelers and bowls.
14. In this sentence ‛understated’ means ‘not trying to get attention. When talking about things that you look at ‛understated’ is always used in a positive way.’
15. In this sentence ‛melancholy’ means ‛a strong feeling of quiet sadness’. There might not be a clear reason for the sadness and the sadness is expressed in a quiet way.
16. If two things are ‛one and the same’ it means that there is not a big difference between two things especially if there seems that there might be.
17. ‛Austere’ means very simple with only the things that are really necessary being used.
18. In this sentence ‛dim’ means not very bright – quite dark.
19. In this sentence ‛school’ means a group of people that follow the same ideas created by the original leader of the group. For example think of painters, writers, dancers and thinkers.
20. In this sentence ‛rigid’ means very strict and difficult to change.
21. ‛Rarely’ means ‛not often’.
22. In this sentence ‛surpass’ means to become to have more than something.
23. ‛Despite’ is used to introduce a fact that is surprising. The fact after the word ‛despite’ is the opposite of what you would expect it to be.
24. In this sentence ‛demand’ means the number of people who want to buy something.
25. In this sentence ‛domestic’ means the situation within the country – not outside the country.
26. In this sentence ‛current’ means the steady movement of water or air or other things in one direction.
27. ‛Mechanization’ means the introduction of machines to do the jobs that used to be done by hand.
28. A In this sentence ‛to allow for’ something means to let it happen. It enables the situation to be like that. You can also write ‛allows’ ～. B In another meaning to ‛allow for’ or ‛allow’ something means to have extra time or money for something so that you can be prepared for problems that you might have.
29. ‛Harvesting’ means the gathering of crops. Crops are plants that people grow to eat.
30. ‛Frost’ is a very thin layer of ice that you see outside covering everything on some mornings after the previous night’s temperature has gone below zero.