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If you walk through the streets of Tokyo or Kyoto today, you will see matcha lattes in sleek cafes and traditional tea ceremonies held in centuries-old wooden houses. It is easy to assume that matcha is the quintessential Japanese product – a symbol of the country’s minimalist Zen aesthetic.
However, if we trace the lineage of this vibrant green powder all the way back, the story doesn’t start in Japan at all. It starts in China.
The Chinese Roots of Matcha: The Tang Dynasty
To truly understand matcha, we have to rewind to the Tang Dynasty (618–907 AD). During this golden age of culture and innovation, tea was not consumed the way we usually think of it today. Instead of steeping loose leaves, the Chinese would pick tea leaves, steam them, and press them into dense bricks or cakes. This made the tea portable and preserved it for long journeys along the Silk Road.
When a person wanted a cup of tea, they would break off a piece of the cake, toast it to bring out the aromatics, and then grind it down to a fine powder using a stone mill. They would place this powder in a bowl, add hot water, and whisk it into a frothy beverage. Sound familiar? This ancient method was the direct ancestor of what we now know as matcha. In essence, drinking powdered tea was originally a Chinese habit.
How Zen Buddhism Brought Matcha to Japan
The transfer of this knowledge to Japan is largely credited to one man: the Buddhist monk Eisai. In 1191, during the Song Dynasty, after studying Buddhism in China, Eisai returned to Japan. He didn’t just bring back religious texts; he brought back high-quality tea seeds and the contemporary Chinese method of grinding tea leaves into a powder.
Eisai was a proselytiser for tea. He believed it was not just a delicious beverage, but a medicinal elixir. In his book Kissa Yojoki (Drink Tea and Prolong Life), he wrote about the benefits of tea for the heart and body. The powdered tea found a natural home in the meditation halls of Zen Buddhism. Monks found that the tea helped them stay alert during long hours of meditation while the ritual of preparing it provided a focused, calming discipline.
The Japanese Tea Ceremony & The Refinement of Matcha
For a few hundred years, Japan held onto this tradition while tea culture back in China began to change. During the Ming Dynasty (14th–17th century), China shifted away from powdered tea. They moved toward the process of steeping whole loose leaves in teapots—the method that dominates most tea drinking globally today.
Japan, however, took the powdered tea seed planted by Eisai and nurtured it into something entirely new. Over centuries, Japanese tea masters turned a simple beverage into a high art form. Farmers developed the tencha method: shading the tea plants for weeks before harvest to boost chlorophyll and amino acids, giving matcha its electric green color and umami sweetness.
Then came the philosophers. Men like Murata Juko and the legendary Sen no Rikyū transformed the tea room. They introduced the concept of Wabi-sabi—the appreciation of imperfection, simplicity, and austerity. They stripped away the ornate decorations of the past and focused on the purity of the moment. The Japanese Tea Ceremony (Chanoyu) was born, and with it, the refined, stone-ground matcha we recognize today.
So, the next time you sip a bowl of matcha, remember you are drinking a beverage that traveled through time. It began as a practical brick of tea in Tang Dynasty China, became a spiritual tool for Zen monks in Kamakura-era Japan, and was perfected into an art form by philosophers in the 16th century.
At brut tea, we connect with this history deeply. The discipline of the tea ceremony, the focus on raw ingredients, and the rejection of unnecessary fluff align perfectly with the our ethos.
We honor the Chinese roots and the Japanese refinement by bringing you a matcha that is strong, authentic, and unapologetically bold. Experience the history for yourself – try our matcha today.