The History of Matcha: From China to Uji and Sen no Rikyū

DISCOVER · HISTORY & CULTURE · NO. 01

The history of matcha brings together drinking methods transmitted from China, cultivation and tea-processing techniques developed in Japan, and the culture of welcoming others through chanoyu, the Japanese way of tea.

Sen no Rikyū did not invent matcha. He deepened a tradition inherited from earlier generations, shaping it into a culture that embraces the room, the utensils, and the way people conduct themselves.

Following events recorded in historical sources, we trace this story from its beginnings in China to Rikyū—and beyond.

Historical painted portrait of Sen no Rikyū, seated in dark robes
Portrait of Sen no Rikyū by Hasegawa Tōhaku. Detail from a work with calligraphy by Shun’oku Sōen. Public-domain reproduction via Wikimedia Commons. This is a historical artwork, not an AI-generated portrait.

1. Beginnings in China—but not yet modern matcha

In eighth-century Tang China, Lu Yu wrote the Chajing, or Classic of Tea.

A representative method described in the book involved roasting compressed tea, crushing it, and boiling it in water. Although the process included reducing tea to powder, it differed from today’s practice of putting matcha and hot water in a bowl and whisking them with a bamboo whisk.

Later, during the Song dynasty, from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries, diancha developed: hot water was added to finely powdered tea, which was then agitated to prepare the drink. This was an important precursor to Japanese matcha. [1]

One distinction matters here: drinking powdered tea is not the same thing as producing modern matcha. Today, matcha is generally made by finely grinding tencha—tea leaves grown under shade, steamed, and dried without rolling. These cultivation and processing techniques developed in Japan.

2. Tea was in Japan before Eisai

An important record of tea drinking in Japan appears in the Nihon Kōki, in an entry for 815.

It records the monk Eichū offering tea to Emperor Saga in Ōmi, an area corresponding to present-day Shiga Prefecture. Tea was therefore being consumed in Japan by at least the ninth century. [2]

For this reason, the familiar claim that “Eisai was the first person to bring tea to Japan” is not accurate.

Eisai’s significance lies not in introducing tea to Japan for the very first time, but in transmitting Song-period methods and ideas about tea and contributing greatly to their spread. His return to Japan in 1191 marks an important milestone in that process.

Eisai and the shogun who was unwell after drinking

One memorable story about Eisai survives in a historical record.

An entry for 1214 in the Azuma Kagami, a chronicle of the Kamakura period, describes the shogun Minamoto no Sanetomo falling ill the day after drinking alcohol. Eisai presented him with tea and a book explaining its benefits. The book is thought to have been connected with the Kissa Yōjōki, his treatise on tea and the cultivation of health. [3]

At this time, tea was valued not only for its taste but also as something that could nourish the body. Alongside contemporary ideas about its benefits, the Kissa Yōjōki describes ways of producing and drinking tea. Its claims, however, belong to the medical understanding of its time; they should not be taken as evidence of modern medical effects.

3. Tea spreads from temples to warriors and townspeople

During Japan’s medieval period, tea spread beyond temples to warriors and townspeople.

One popular activity was tōcha: contests in which participants tasted tea and tried to identify its origin or other characteristics. Some gatherings offered lavish prizes. A culture of displaying and appreciating Chinese artworks and utensils also developed around tea. Such imported objects were known as karamono. [4]

Tea gatherings were thus not only spiritual activities. They could also be occasions for play, social interaction, and the display of wealth and cultivated taste. Against this background, another direction in chanoyu began to emerge—one that looked for value beyond the magnificence of the objects on display.

4. Two important predecessors came before Rikyū

Jukō: looking beyond celebrated Chinese objects

The fifteenth-century tea practitioner Jukō, also known as Murata Jukō, is an important figure in the emergence of wabi-cha, a form of tea that values restrained, unostentatious beauty.

A letter conveying his teachings, known as Kokoro no Isshi, speaks of blurring the boundary between Japanese and Chinese things. Rather than rejecting fine Chinese objects, Jukō also turned his attention to modest Japanese pottery. He found a new beauty in bringing the two together. [5]

Takeno Jōō: seeing everyday objects as tea utensils

Next comes Takeno Jōō, a tea master from Sakai.

Although Jōō owned expensive and celebrated objects, he also found new roles for everyday things. A plain wooden vessel used to draw water from a well could become a mizusashi, the container holding fresh water at a tea gathering. He also experimented with carving bamboo into tea scoops.

This creative way of seeing is called mitate.

An object did not have to be made specifically for tea to earn a place in the tea room. Its form and material could be recognized afresh and given a new purpose. This approach passed to Rikyū, who learned from Jōō. Wabi-cha was not something Rikyū suddenly created on his own. [6]

5. Meanwhile, Uji was refining the tea itself

While tea masters were developing rooms and utensils, producers in Uji were working to improve the quality of tea leaves.

One important technique was ōishita saibai, or covered cultivation: tea gardens were shaded with reed screens, straw, and similar materials to reduce sunlight. These cultivation and processing practices helped develop matcha with a vivid green color and pronounced umami. Tea production in Uji grew in close connection with demand and patronage from tea practitioners and powerful figures.

We should, however, be cautious about stating that covered cultivation was first invented in the sixteenth century.

A study published in 2019 analyzed soil from the Okunoyama tea garden in Uji and suggested that covered cultivation may have been practiced there by at least the first half of the fifteenth century—earlier than the period indicated by written records. This is an inference based on research at a particular garden, not a definitive answer to who invented the method or in what year.

When matcha’s history is told only through Rikyū, the work of these producers disappears from view. The culture of the tea gathering and the techniques of cultivation and processing are both essential parts of the story.

6. Sen no Rikyū: from Sakai merchant to tea master among rulers

Sen no Rikyū was born in 1522 into a merchant family in Sakai. He studied chanoyu from a young age and was influenced by Takeno Jōō and others. Before he became known as Rikyū, he practiced under the name Sōeki. [7]

A tea master—and an important political intermediary

Rikyū served Oda Nobunaga and, after Nobunaga’s death, became a central figure in Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s tea practice.

Chanoyu at this time could not be separated from politics. Nobunaga collected famous tea utensils and used them to reward distinguished retainers, making tea part of the expression of authority.

An intriguing record reveals something of Rikyū’s influence. A letter from Ōtomo Sōrin distinguishes between Sōeki for private matters and the chancellor for public ones. Omotesenke explains this as a distinction between Rikyū as a private intermediary to Hideyoshi and Hideyoshi’s brother Hidenaga as the public channel. Rikyū was not simply someone who served tea: he also acted as an important intermediary within the regime. [8]

Rikyū considered the whole experience surrounding a bowl of tea

In Rikyū’s chanoyu, the bowl did not stand alone. The room, the selection and arrangement of utensils, the food, and the conduct of the gathering came together to create a single experience.

One representative space associated with his tea is Tai-an, a tea room of just two tatami mats. The nijiriguchi, a small entrance through which guests lower themselves to enter, also became an important feature of rustic-style tea rooms. Within a small space, host and guests were brought together to attend to a bowl of tea. [9]

Among the utensils associated with Rikyū, the Raku tea bowls made by the potter Chōjirō are particularly well known. Rather than being thrown on a potter’s wheel, these bowls are built by hand and refined by carving. They may appear simple, but their form and tactile qualities are carefully considered.

No surviving documents tell us in detail how Rikyū and Chōjirō discussed the making of these bowls. On the other hand, a tea-gathering record from 1586 mentions bowls described as Sōeki-gata, suggesting a connection with Rikyū’s design ideas. Imagining the details of their collaboration and establishing what the records actually show are two different things.

He also helped stage a vast tea gathering with Hideyoshi

In 1587, Hideyoshi held the Kitano Grand Tea Gathering at Kitano Tenmangū in Kyoto. Rikyū participated alongside Imai Sōkyū, Tsuda Sōgyū, and others. Accounts describe as many as 800 places for preparing tea within the grounds. [10]

The same Rikyū who deepened the tea of the small room also supported a ruler’s large-scale public event.

Seen together, these two sides resist the simple story of an austere Rikyū and a luxury-loving Hideyoshi who were opposed from the beginning. Rikyū was deeply involved in tea gatherings that also expressed Hideyoshi’s authority.

7. Rikyū’s final years: what we know, and what we do not

In 1591, Rikyū was ordered by Hideyoshi to commit seppuku.

The decisive reason for this punishment remains uncertain. The controversy over a wooden statue of Rikyū placed in the gate of Daitokuji is well known, but it cannot by itself explain everything. Explanations such as a clash of aesthetic ideals or Hideyoshi’s jealousy should not be presented as established historical fact. [11]

There is another important distinction to keep in mind when reading about Rikyū: contemporary tea-gathering records and anecdotes compiled in later generations are not the same kind of evidence.

For example, the Chawa Shigetsushū relates a story in which Rikyū, asked about the arrangement of a garden, offered a poem describing evergreen oak leaves lying along a lonely path to a mountain temple. The story evokes a Rikyū who valued quiet atmosphere rather than splendid scenery. It should, however, be read as an anecdote preserved in a later collection of recollections. [12]

By contrast, records such as the Matsuya Kaiki, Tennōjiya Kaiki, and Sōtan Nikki describe guests, utensils, and other details of gatherings recorded by tea practitioners of Rikyū’s own time. These are important sources for understanding what actually took place at tea gatherings. [9]

8. After Rikyū, chanoyu continued—and changed

Within the Sen family, Rikyū’s legacy passed through his grandson Sen Sōtan. In the generation of Sōtan’s sons, the foundations of Omotesenke, Urasenke, and Mushakōjisenke were established. [13]

Chanoyu was not limited to the Sen family. Different aesthetic approaches also developed through figures such as Furuta Oribe and Kobori Enshū. From the Meiji period onward, ryūrei—tea using tables and chairs—and tea taught in schools as a way of learning manners also spread. The forms of Rikyū’s lifetime did not survive unchanged into the present. [14]

A way to understand this history

We can bring these threads together as follows.

Japanese monks inherited methods of drinking tea developed in China. Producers in Uji and elsewhere refined the quality of the tea. Jukō, Jōō, Rikyū, and others deepened a culture of sharing a bowl with another person. Matcha belongs to that long accumulation of work and care.

For this reason, it is more faithful to history to describe matcha as a tea with roots in China that developed distinctive production methods and a culture of chanoyu in Japan, rather than as “a Japanese drink invented by Rikyū.”

Sources and further reading

The historical texts discussed above are introduced through research and commentary from tea institutions and museums. Links [1]–[14] in the article lead to the relevant Omotesenke explanations, mostly in Japanese. Later anecdotes and scholarly inferences are identified as such rather than treated as contemporary eyewitness evidence.

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