Tea is a delicacy that has been enjoyed by humans throughout history, with many now even claiming that their tea would be a large part of the cultural identity of their country. In history, the origin of tea is not ubiquitous in the world, rather, it also had a starting place.
One myth claims that in the year 2737 BC, the Chinese Emperor Shen Nung noticed a green leaf had been blown into a bowl of boiling water. Upon inspection, he noted that created the leaf created a pleasant smell, urging him to drink from it. Finding it to be refreshing, it’s said that the popularization of tea began from that period. Outside of myths, surviving journals state the use of tea leaves having been used as a medicinal treatment since the 3rd century AD in China.
Regardless of its origin, trade managed to exchange the seeds throughout the old world – popularizing the drink. It is within these early years of society that tea shifted, where differences began to emerge about how to prepare this tea differently, which even eventually shaped the borders between the cultural groups of the east.
Among those many places where tea bears so many names and variants, one of the most well-known Tea reigns as evidence.
Cultivated into a mainstay tradition, the Rising sun’s Green Tea reigns as the cultural icon of the island nation.
Green Tea crossed the seas of Japan from China in the Kamakura period by messengers of faith, who bore hopes to curing the period of restless that their island nation was suffering from.
Viewing tea as both a necessity for health and mind, the early 13th-century Zen Buddhist monk Eisai brought tea as a supplement in hopes to heal his wounded people who had been suffering through a restless period of war.
Hoping that with faith and tea that he could relieve his people from this period of Mappō (a time of great pain), he grew some of the first tea plants in the garden of the Ishigamibo. Eventually, the popularization of Green Tea created a layout for Tea Ceremony traditions in the following years, serving as a tool of civility that shaped cultural traditions that are still followed by the people of Japan to this day.
In these times, Green Tea is considered to be one of the most important tastes for Japan. Without it would be unthinkable.
