Tea the Drink That Changed the World: Ancient Japanese Tea
Tea served a major role in Japanese history. Tea was first introduced in Japan during the Nara and Heian periods when they sent an envoy of leading Buddhist scholars to what was then Tang dynasty China. The Buddhist scholars brought back tea seeds from China, and thusly Tea was introduced to Japan. However this did not mean everyone in Japan started drinking tea immediately, as tea during that time period was extremely valuable and only supposed to be consumed by royalty, nobility and Buddhist scholars. During the early Heian period Emperor Saga highly discouraged the drinking and cultivation of to, to try to keep its value. In the early Kamakura period new tea seeds were brought into Japan by Eisai, another Buddhist scholar and founder of the Rinzai sect of zen Buddhism. These seeds were brought from Kyoto during Sung dynasty China. The first book of tea written in japan was by Kissa Yojoki and it was titled "How to Stay Healthy by Drinking Tea." During this time period the emergence of the printing press allowed this book to be published in several different languages. This then marked the period when Tea started becoming a drink that was consumed by many people, and the rise in the popularity of tea,
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