The History of Matcha

All true tea comes from the tea plant “Camellia Sinensis”, a shrub native to Southern China. Green tea is known as the healthiest form of tea due to its lack of processing, resulting in extremely high nutrient levels.

Matcha green tea originated in Japan, and because the entire leaf is ingested in powder form, it is the most potent green tea in the world. In Japanese “cha” means tea, and “ma” means powder ... thus the word matcha translates literally as powdered green tea. 


It is believed that the very first green tea seeds were brought to Japan from China by the Zen Monk Eisai in 1191 A.D., who planted them on the temple grounds in Kyoto. Eisai, who introduced the Zen philosophy to Japan, was the first person to grind and consume green tea leaves in powdered form. Thus Zen and matcha became inextricably bound together, in the form of the exquisite tea ceremony.

The tea ceremony celebrates the profound beauty of simple things, the extraordinary in the ordinary, and is intended to bring all participants into the here and now. The drinking of matcha tea as the focal point of the tea ceremony was a perfect choice, as matcha stimulates presence of mind, mental alertness, and a calm, meditative state simultaneously. These profound physiological benefits of matcha intuited by the wise sages of Japan are now being proven by modern science, as more and more groundbreaking studies on the health benefits of green tea are published.