Tea was first brought to Japan during the Heian period, in the era of the Kentōshi (Japanese envoys to Tang China). In 805, Saichō, the founder of the Tendai sect of Buddhism in Japan, returned from China as a Kentōshi and planted tea seeds he had brought back at Hiyoshi Taisha on Mount Hiei. The following year, in 806, Kūkai is also said to have brought back tea seeds and a stone mill from China, which he then planted on Mount Hiei. At that time, tea was used as medicine and for rituals among monks and aristocrats, but it did not spread to the general public, and once the Kentōshi missions were abolished, tea gradually declined.

The person who popularized tea cultivation in Japan was the monk Myōe Shōnin of Toganoo in Kyoto. In the early Kamakura period (around the late 12th century), he received tea seeds from Eisai Zenji, the founder of the Rinzai sect. Believing that tea had many beneficial effects—such as helping monks stay awake during training—Myōe enthusiastically promoted its use among monks. Furthermore, at Kōzan-ji Temple in Toganoo, Kyoto, a location well-suited for tea cultivation, he established Japan’s first tea garden and laid the foundation for tea cultivation methods.

Kyoto’s Toganoo had the perfect climate and terrain for tea cultivation, producing high-quality and delicious tea. The tea grown there was called Toganoo tea, and its excellence was so renowned that Toganoo tea was referred to as “honcha” (genuine tea), while tea from outside Toganoo was called “hicha” (non-tea).

During the Kamakura period, tōcha (tea contests) became popular among the upper classes. Also known as cha-kabuki, this was a game in which participants prepared and drank various teas in a large gathering, then guessed the tea’s origin or variety. The main challenge was to identify whether the tea was the genuine Toganoo tea (honcha) or one of the others (hicha).

How Tea Spread in Wazuka Town

In the Kamakura period (probably from the late 12th century to the early 13th century), the high priest Jishin Shōnin of Kaijūsen-ji Temple in neighboring Kamo Town received tea seeds from Myōe Shōnin of Toganoo, Kyoto, and cultivated them at the foot of Mount Jūbuzan. Jishin Shōnin came from the Fujiwara family, patrons of Myōe, so it is believed that their connection had already been strong even before he entered the priesthood.

At first, Myōe Shōnin gave him just a few tea seeds, but from these, tea gradually spread to Wazuka Town, Minamiyamashiro Village, and surrounding areas. Initially, the tea was grown mainly for monks at temples to use for their own practice.

By the Tenshō era (1573–79), records show that 57 a (approximately 0.57 hectares) of tea seedlings were planted in the Harayama area of Wazuka Town. By this period, signs appeared that tea cultivation in Wazuka was shifting from being mainly for personal temple use to becoming a commercial crop.

Tea Cultivation in the Yubune Area of Wazuka Town

There are no official documents regarding the very beginning of tea cultivation in the Yubune area, but a deed of sale for a tea field from 1711 suggests that tea fields were already being cultivated there at that time.

In this document, the seller was Mr. Shinzaburō from Kosugi Village in Yubune, and the buyer was Mr. Saburōbei from Kaminomura, also in Yubune. Although it does not appear to have been a large tea field, even such small-scale transactions were accompanied by properly written contracts with guarantors.

Records from Daichi-ji Temple in the Yubune area also note that when new rice fields were developed there in 1708, sencha cultivation was already taking place in the surrounding area.

It is safe to say that by at least the 1600s, tea cultivation had already spread to some extent in Yubune—the very area where d:matcha is now located. At that time, it is believed that the tea grown was almost entirely sencha, rather than tencha.

Tea Trade Between Wazuka and Edo

A ledger recording tea trade with Edo in 1849 shows that a man named Asaemon from Kamazuka in Wazuka Town played the role of a middleman, sending tea collected from Wazuka to merchants in Edo such as Yamamoto Kahei, receiving payment from them, and then distributing the money to tea merchants within Wazuka.

The total annual trade amounted to around 2,000 ryō (equivalent to roughly 20 million yen today), indicating that a significant volume of tea and money was being exchanged between Wazuka and Edo.

On the seals stamped in the ledger, the characters “Jōshū Uji Wazuka” can be seen, showing that by the mid-19th century, the name “Uji” was also being used in association with tea from Wazuka.

In the Yubune area, traditional sencha factories still remain. By the early Taishō period (the early 1900s), machine-based tea production had become widespread, but many tea factories from the hand-rolling era, before the shift to mechanization, are still preserved.