Not a “Tea Ceremony”. History and Basic Concepts.

A short history of Chanoyu, from Tang China to present day.

Matcha is everywhere now. It’s in cookies, candy, milky drinks, bovine colostrum (yup... available in LA's fanciest supermarket), and even skincare. This intense popularity shines a light on a most beautiful aspect of Japanese culture, often called the 'Tea Ceremony' in the West.

Personally, I think that the term “Tea Ceremony” undersells the art. Japanese terms do more justice: 茶道, Chadō or Sadō, means “the way of tea.” 茶の湯, Chanoyu, more humbly, means “hot water for tea.”

I believe that the heart of Chadō is connection. A few guests step into a tea room and leave their worries at the door. A host whisks a bowl of tea in a space curated with extreme care. Host and guests are both critically impotant in the process; everyone leaves the room a happier person.

Yamashita Nana San hosted a most enjoyable tea gathering at Sabi Arts, in Vancouver. Thanks to Maiko Sensei for sharing this wonderful space, and to Nana San for a fantastic tea experience.

Rant over! For the rest of this article, I’ll use Chanoyu, Chadō, or Sadō instead of “Tea Ceremony.” Now, let's dive into the history.

Tang China: tea becomes much more than a simple herb

Tea drinking in China goes back further than most people think. Archaeologists have found evidence of tea consumption near modern Zoucheng, in Shandong Province, dating to around 400 BCE. Tea, however, was not a full-blown cultural phenomenon until the Tang dynasty (618–907).

The roots of O5, in a way, trace back to one Tang-era writer: Lu Yu (陸羽), author of the Chajing (茶經), the Classic of Tea. It begins, simply: “茶者南方之嘉木也,” ("tea is a fine tree of the south").

From there, Lu Yu goes deep: the plant, how to grow it, how to process it, the equipment, the choice of water, the brewing method... A lot of that is still very useful today. 

Tang tea wasn’t anything like modern matcha. Leaves were steamed, pressed into cakes, and dried. Making a bowl meant roasting the cake, grinding it, and boiling it with a pinch of salt, a slow, deliberate process that rewarded attention and presence. I had the chance of learning about this with my old friend Zhang Wenhua, in Changxing (very close to the place where Lu Yu lived and worked); please don't mind the funny hat! And if you'd like to try some tea inspired by the Lu Yu, consder these Tang Dynasty Style Zisun Coins.

And few people were better at cultivating presence than the Buddhist monks of the Chan, or Zen, tradition.

Monks, Meditation, and the Legend of Drinking Tea to Stay Focused

Chinese monasteries weren’t only religious centres; they were also centres of scholarship and cultural exchange. In a society where most people were born into farming, soldiering, a trade, or commerce, becoming a monk was often the surest path to a real education, short of being born into a feudal lord’s family.

During the Tang and Song dynasties, tea and tea culture flourished inside monastery walls. Jingshan Temple, near present day Hangzhou, is often called the "cradle" of Japanese and Korean tea culture, since many monks from those countries learned about tea and Buddhism within its walls. Historical figures like Eisai and Dōgen get most of the credit, and deservedly so, but a long list of Chinese, Korean, and Mongolian monks played a part too.

Jingshan Temple, Hangzhou

Jingshan Temple helped spread tea and Buddhism

How tea reached Japan

The story most people know is that a Zen monk named Eisai brought tea to Japan. We think of Eisai less as a single hero and more as a stand-in for a much larger group: monks and travellers who studied in Chinese monasteries and carried tea knowledge home with them.

Tea gardens at places like Mandokoro in Shiga, Honyama in Shizuoka, and Kōzan-ji in Kyoto all trace back to roughly this period, thanks to Eisai, Kūkai (also known as Kōbō Daishi), and plenty of others history hasn’t kept track of.

Kosanji is often called the oldest tea garden in Japan

Visit to Kosanji (Kyoto) thanks to Yoshida Masahiro San (black jacket, not hat), whose family crafts outstanding matcha in Uji.

Hayashi Seiji San (Mizunomori Chaen in Mandokoro) cares for a tea garden that may well be contemporary of Kosanji's. Some of his tea trees are hundreds of years old.

The Story of Tea Powder (early 'matcha' in the Song Dynasty)

Tea culture kept evolving between the Tang and Song dynasties. During the Song dynasty (960–1279), a practice called 點茶 (diǎnchá) became fashionable among educated circles. Tea was ground into powder, placed in a bowl, mixed with hot water, and whisked vigorously into something that loosely resembles today’s matcha.

It would have disappointed a lot of modern matcha purists, though. Song tea, especially the prized tribute teas, was pressed into small cake-like tablets, similar to Tang tea. These cakes were then ground into a fine powder and whisked into a froth. It was slow work, the kind that would make any modern barista wince at a ten-person queue.

 

If you want to go deeper on this, Cambridge University Press has a genuinely excellent piece on Beiyuan (北苑), the celebrated tea-growing region of the Song dynasty.

If you'd like to experience some tea inspired by the Song Dynasty, consider whisking some of this.

And if you would like to watch a beatiful demonstration of this style of tea, this is Sifu Fion Wu's interpretation.

Eisai

The monk Eisai is one of the most important people in Japanese tea history. After studying in Song China, he became a key figure in bringing new forms of Chan Buddhism to Japan. He also brought back knowledge of how the Chinese were drinking powdered tea at the time.

He wrote a book called 喫茶養生記 (Kissa Yōjōki), Record of Drinking Tea and Nourishing Life (which I haven't read yet - but should). It’s reportedly a book about health and medicine as much as it’s about tea. I will confirm as soon as I can get my hands on a copy that I can read.

We often hear a nice story about Zen monks being responsible for the explosion of tea culture... but there here is an important clarification: the Agency for Cultural Affairs also points out that tea cultivation in this era wasn’t confined to Zen monasteries. Tendai, Shingon, and Ritsu institutions all appear in the historical record too

Most likely, tea culture was introduced and developed by a very diverse group of scholars who travelled to China and discoverd (as we all have) the wonderful world of tea leaves.

A Truly Japanese Art

Up to this point, the story is mostly about transmission, tea moving from one place to another. At some point, Sado became a truly Japanese art, tied to the soul of the nation's culture.

By the Muromachi period, imported karamono, “Chinese things,” carried serious prestige. Powerful warriors collected Chinese ceramics, paintings, and luxury objects, and tea gatherings became a stage where people could show off wealth, political power, and connoisseurship. Tea and tea ware were, quite literally, status symbols.

Warlords like Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi understood this and used tea for political effect, sometimes to spectacular results. Against that backdrop, thinkers like Ikkyū Sōjun, Sen no Rikyū, and Murata Jukō started asking a different kind of question: what actually deserves our attention?

“Above all, dispel the boundary between Wa [Japan] and Kan [China].” — Murata Jukō

If a bowl gives you a genuinely good experience, does it matter whether it’s expensive, imported, or famous? Who gets to decide what’s worth paying attention to?

Shoraku Gama's Sasaki Kyoshitsu Sensei creates bowls with a true Japanese soul in Kyoto

Sen no Rikyū

The next outstanding character is another monk: Sen no Rikyū (1522–1591). If you haven't watched the movie "Death of a Tea Master", please do!

Rikyū inherited an already layered tradition: Chinese tea technology, monastic ritual, medieval Japanese hospitality, Budo (warrior) ethos,  imported ceramics, Korean bowls, Japanese pottery...  Rikyū brought order and system to all of this codifying the Art of Tea. He helped push humble materials, asymmetry, and Japanese and Korean ceramics into the centre of a new aesthetic language. He worked directly with craftspeople and pushed for new utensils instead of simply relying on an inherited list of prestigious objects. Raku ware, especially the hand-built bowls associated with Chōjirō, grew out of this environment.

Maple leaf natsume

The beauty of Rikyū’s tea was in its remarkable simplicity, even when he was serving two of the most powerful, flamboyant warlords in Japanese history, Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

Other Iconic Characters after Rikyū

Furuta Oribe (1544–1615) brought some genuine fun into the tea room. The Kyoto National Museum describes his utensils as hyōgemono, “oddities,” often playful shapes that could look almost cheeky by the standards of the day. If Oribe were working today, we like to imagine he’d have designed a Pokémon tea bowl.

Kobori Enshū (1579–1647) is associated with kirei-sabi, an elegant, refined take on simplicity. Kanamori Sōwa (1584–1656) developed his own distinct style too.

There’s a good lesson buried here: tradition survives, in part, because it stays alive.

The West meets Japanese Tea

One of the clearest proofs that Chanoyu is a living practice, not a museum piece, comes from a period of enormous social upheaval. The Meiji Restoration began in 1868. Japan reorganized its institutions at speed while Western architecture, clothing, furniture, technology, and diplomatic customs poured into public life. The patronage that had long supported tea culture was shifting too.

What do you do with a centuries-old practice in a moment like that? One option would have been to freeze it exactly as it was.

That’s not what happened.

The eleventh Urasenke head, Gengensai Seichū (1810–1877), developed ryūrei, a style of tea service using a table and chairs instead of traditional floor seating.

At the first Kyoto Exposition in 1872, his disciple Maeda Zuisetsu demonstrated this new style for foreign visitors. Urasenke’s own archive describes it plainly as a new temae developed using a table and chairs, in response to changing, increasingly Western patterns of daily life.

We love this detail.

A chair didn’t destroy tea.

Neither did a table.

The host still has to truly see the guest. The guest still receives the bowl. Water still gets heated. Tea still gets made. Attention still moves, quietly, between people.

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Sources

We’ve leaned on primary texts, peer-reviewed research, government archives, museums, universities, and tea institutions throughout. A short quotation is included from every source materially used.

1. Oxford Bibliographies in Art History, “Arts of the Tea Ceremony,” Oxford University Press, 2025. Quoted: “not a translation of any existing Japanese term, nor does it capture the breadth of the practice.”
2. James A. Benn, “Buddhism and Tea during the Tang Dynasty,” in Tea in China: A Religious and Cultural History, University of Hawai‘i Press, 2015. Quoted: “Tea drinking changed arenas for social interaction as monks and literati could exchange ideas.”
3. Lu Yu 陸羽, 《茶經》 Chajing / Classic of Tea, Tang dynasty, Kanripo digital text. Quoted: “茶者南方之嘉木也,” “Tea is a fine tree of the south.” Translation ours.
4. Anna Sokolova, “Building and Rebuilding Buddhist Monasteries in Tang China,” Religions 12, no. 4, 2021. Quoted: “important centers of general scholasticism and education.”
5. Sai Yau Siu, “Dawn of a New Era: Translation Efforts in Early Tang,” in The Evolution of Team-Based Buddhist Scripture Translation in Tang China, Springer, 2024. Quoted: “the establishment of a translation organization in Chang’an.”
6. Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan, 生活文化調査研究事業（煎茶道）報告書, 2023. Quoted from the 815 record: “手自ら茶を煎じ奉御す,” Eichū personally prepared tea for the emperor. Translation ours.
7. National Taiwan University Library and Graduate Institute of Art History, “宋代茶盞特展 / Exhibition of Song-Dynasty Tea Bowls.” Quoted: “將茶製成粉末後…用茶筅擊拂攪拌後飲用,” tea was powdered and “beaten and stirred with a tea whisk before drinking.” Translation ours.
8. Xiaolin Duan, “Tea and Place: The Evolving Discussion about Terroir in Song China,” Journal of Chinese History, Cambridge University Press, 2026. Quoted: “The Song dynasty witnessed a profound transformation in both the technology and aesthetics of tea preparation.”
9. Shu-fen Liu, “Tea and Medicinal Soup Ceremonies as Seen in the Chanyuan qinggui,” Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica 78.4, 2007. Quoted: “including timing, preparation, participants, seating arrangements, dialogue between participants, and the burning of incense.”
10. Yifa, The Origins of Buddhist Monastic Codes in China: An Annotated Translation and Study of the Chanyuan qinggui, University of Hawai‘i Press. Quoted: “the earliest Chan monastic code in existence.”
11. Albert Welter, “Unveiling Hangzhou’s Intellectual Legacy: Chinese Buddhist Reference Works and Knowledge Production in the Song and Beyond,” Religions 14, 2023. Quoted: Hangzhou “served as the launch pad for Chan Buddhism’s spread to the rest of East Asia.”
12. Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan, “茶道の歴史と現状について.” Quoted: “新しい喫茶の方式である抹茶（点茶）がもたらされる,” “a new method of tea drinking, matcha/diancha, was brought.” Translation ours.
13. Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan, National Database of Designated Cultural Properties, “喫茶養生記.” Quoted: “喫茶の効能、製法等を伝えた医書,” “a medical text transmitting tea’s benefits and preparation methods.” Translation ours.
14. Kyoto National Museum, Chanoyu: Tea in the Cultural Life of Kyoto, 2022. Quoted, from its translation of Jukō: “Above all, dispel the boundary between Wa [Japan] and Kan [China].”
15. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Freshwater Jar (Mizusashi) in the Shape of a Seed Jar.” Quoted: Jōō “used ‘found’ Japanese objects in his tea gatherings.”
16. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, “The Japanese Tea Ceremony.” Quoted: “These tea masters began to incorporate rustic ceramic vessels from Korea and Japan.”
17. National Diet Library Reference Collaborative Database, “一期一会について知りたい.” Quoted: “一期に一度の会のやうに,” “as though it were a once-in-a-lifetime gathering.” Translation ours.
18. Hikone Castle Museum, “茶湯一会集 / Chanoyu Ichie-shū.” Quoted: “一生に一度の会と思って心を尽くし,” “give oneself fully, thinking of it as a once-in-a-lifetime meeting.” Translation ours.
19. Chadō Research Center / Urasenke, “近代の博覧会と茶の湯 / Modern-age Expositions and Chanoyu,” 2020. Quoted: “卓と椅子を用いた新しい茶の点前『立礼』,” “a new tea preparation, ryūrei, using table and chairs.” Translation ours.
20. Rebecca Corbett, Cultivating Femininity: Women and Tea Culture in Edo and Meiji Japan, University of Hawai‘i Press, 2018. Quoted: “The overwhelming majority of tea practitioners in contemporary Japan are women.”