FUJI GREEN TEA from JAPAN

Green tea from JAPAN

Have you wondered where green tea came from? If one were to study green tea in any detail, rather than finding a concise history of discovery and a subsequent spread across the continents, you would learn that green tea’s history is much more convoluted. There are many different versions and legends abound regarding the discovery of tea.

People who did slash-and-burn farming in mountainous region of western Japan drank mountain tea which grows there naturally. It spread among farmers starting in the Jyomon period (ca. 10,500–ca. 300 B.C.).

The first written account of tea in Japan dates back to the Nara (710-794 AD) and Heian periods (794-1192 AD). Japanese monks who travelled to China brought tea when they returned to Japan.

Later, in the Kamakura period (1185-1333), tea was reintroduced in the form of matcha powder. This tea was drunk by the samurai class and city dwellers. During the Muromachi period (1333-1573), tea gained popularity among people of all social classes.

In 1738, in the middle of the Edo period(1603-1868), the method of steaming green tea was developed and Gyokuro, a shade grown steamed green tea, was introduced in 1835. Green tea was popular to all over Japan during Muromachi (1336-1573) and Edo periods (1603-1868)