Today, all of Tov Tea’s matcha is sourced single-origin from Japanese farmers, but did you know matcha tea first originated in China over 10,000 years ago? Matcha’s fascinating history can trace its origins to the Tang Dynasty sometime between the Seventh and Tenth Centuries.
Later, in the Song Dynasty, the Chinese began to process, dry, and pack tea into cakes. However, the true art of the matcha process and ceremony as we understand it today, known as chado sado, or the way of tea, has its beginnings on Japanese soil in part thanks to two Buddhist monks, Saicho and Kukai. At the time, they were returning from study in China around 804 AD. After absorbing the culture and ceremony surrounding the unique tea preparation method for matcha, and observing how the other monks used it to enhance their concentration during meditation, Saicho and Kukai decided to bring their learnings back to Japan. It was here in Japan that matcha began to flourish in earnest with the natural shade cover of the Kyoto region where they first planted the seeds.
Then, in 1191 AD, another monk by the name of Eisai brought back not only the practice of Chan, transliterated into Japanese as Zen, Buddhism but also more tea seeds as well as the Chinese process of powdered green tea. Eisai began this new, stone-ground process in Kyushu, Japan. There was an evolution that started with the monks who saw tea as a medicinal drink that could improve mental and physical health as well as their meditative periods, it soon spread to the Samurai who used matcha for concentration and gains on the battlefield. Eventually, matcha gained popularity among the elite in fancy Kyoto tea houses. Finally, it spread throughout Japan as a health benefit for all after the tea ceremony reached beyond the opulent tea houses to countryside tea houses and even into homes.
The legacy of the man who made the tea ceremony more equitable, Sen-No-Rikyu, lasts. He is credited with moving the tea ceremonies to the countryside for all to enjoy as well as making the entryways into tea houses low so all who entered were required to bow. The action of bowing establishes equality between guests no matter their status. This new version of the tea ceremony defined the concept of wabi-cha as creating a strong bond between the host and guest, two equals enjoying a cup of tea, a cup of health, in silence. Inside the tea house, all guests are equal.