Matcha - A brief history

Welcome back to our blog series. We took a little break off over the summer, and are coming back revitalized and ready to provide you with regular, informative, and fun posts on the Solaris Tea Blog, starting with today's Matcha Madness each Monday this October our 'Month of Matcha'.

We've shared this information before, but with all the talk about Matcha over the past few years we've noticed that there's still a lot of confusion around the wonder Green Tea Powder. Many people have very different ideas of what it is, where it comes from, and what the benefits actually are. So as a good start, we thought we'd give you a quick 'brief history of matcha'.

Matcha is a finely powdered Green Tea, often believed to be from Japan - mostly because that's where it has held the most popularity for centuries. But, matcha actually originated in the Wei-Jin period (220-559 AD) in China during the development of the Tang dynasty (618-907 AD) and also in the Song dynasty (960-1279 AD). Green Tea Powder then actually went out of fashion during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 AD) when the fashion in China became more focused on loose leaf teas, wing soup, and dumped tea leaves.

It was during the Japanese Kamakura Period (1185-13692 AD), that Japanese 'Rinzai-Zen' Monks brought back the method of making Green Tea Matcha from a visit to China, and planted the first tea tree in the Uji Mountain (near Kyoto). As the wonder green tea powder aided the monks in their meditation practice, quickly Matcha began to spread through Japan, when by the 16th century, Japanese Tea Sage 'Sen no Riky' started introducing Matcha to his tea ceremonies. It was from this that Matcha grew in regard and spread throughout the country.

After Matcha found its way to Japan, it became very popular and has remained that way for many centuries. Due to its popularity it has undergone many innovations and these days it is used in much of the Japanese food processing. Matcha has since become popular in western culture is now used throughout the world as a cooking ingredient and as a health, wellness and lifestyle supplement, as well in the beautiful Japanese Tea Ceremony that survives still to this day.

At Solaris we want to offer you the very best Matcha options. Check out our Matcha shop here.