page_title: History of tea in Japan
section_title: Edo period
hierarchical_section_title: History of tea in Japan / Edo period
caption_attribution_description: English: Deep steamed sencha from the first harvest of 2017. Grown in Kagoshima, this tea is made using the Sae Midori variety of the tea plant, which is a cross between Yabukita and Asatsuyu.
context_page_description: The history of tea in Japan began as early as the 9th century, when the first known references to tea were made in Japanese records. Tea became a drink of the religious classes in Japan when Japanese priests and envoys sent to China to learn about its culture brought tea to Japan. The Buddhist monks Kūkai and Saichō may have been the first to bring tea seeds to Japan. The first form of tea brought from China was probably brick tea. Tea became a drink of the royal classes when Emperor Saga, the Japanese emperor, encouraged the growth of tea plants. Seeds were imported from China, and cultivation in Japan began.
  Tea consumption became popular among the gentry during the 12th century, after the publication of Eisai's Kissa Yōjōki. Uji, with its strategic location near the capital at Kyoto, became Japan's first major tea-producing region during this period. Beginning in the 13th and 14th centuries, Japanese tea culture developed the distinctive features for which it is known today, and the Japanese tea ceremony emerged as a key component of that culture.
  In the following centuries, production increased and tea became a staple of the general public.
context_section_description: Under the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan's Edo period (1603–1868), new forms of tea emerged, accompanied by new developments in tea culture. Influenced by China's Ming dynasty (1368–1644), steeped loose leaf tea emerged as an alternative to powdered tea, leading to the development of sencha.
caption: Sencha tea leaves
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