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[[File:Genmaicha.jpg|right|thumb|250px|[[Genmaicha]], brewed from tea leaves and rice, as seen on the left; the resulting tea on the right.]]
*''Scientific name: camellia sinensis''
*''Scientific name: camellia sinensis''
*''Japanese'': お茶 ''(ocha)''
*''Japanese'': お茶 ''(ocha)''
Tea, in a variety of forms, is a central element of Japanese culture, and is commonly drunk in a variety of contexts, from the everyday, at home, in restaurants and teashops/cafés, to the more formal context of the [[tea ceremony]].
Tea, in a variety of forms, is a central element of Japanese culture, and is commonly drunk in a variety of contexts, from the everyday, at home, in restaurants and teashops/cafés, to the more formal context of the [[tea ceremony]]. Throughout history, it was a major commercial and [[tribute]] good, grown both in China and Japan, and circulated domestically and overseas.
==Cultivation & Production==
With the exception of herbal teas, which include infusions of a wide variety of plant products from [[ginger]] to chrysanthemum or buckwheat, all "true" tea, including green tea, black tea, and white tea, is made from the leaves of the ''camellia sinensis'' plant.<ref name=matsuda>Matt Matsuda, ''Pacific Worlds'', Cambridge University Press (2012), 192.</ref>
With the exception of herbal teas, which include infusions of a wide variety of plant products from [[ginger]] to chrysanthemum or buckwheat, all "true" tea, including green tea, black tea, and white tea, is made from the leaves of the ''camellia sinensis'' plant.<ref name=matsuda>Matt Matsuda, ''Pacific Worlds'', Cambridge University Press (2012), 192.</ref>
Tea in China was traditionally most heavily grown in [[Fujian province|Fujian]] and [[Guangdong province]]s. Harvested tea leaves were first rolled in bamboo containers to draw out their oils, and were then place in iron woks over flames, in order to stop them from oxidizing further. The leaves were then dried, and ready to be packaged up for shipment or sale.<ref name=matsuda/>
Tea in China was traditionally most heavily grown in [[Fujian province|Fujian]] and [[Guangdong province]]s. Harvested tea leaves were first rolled in bamboo containers to draw out their oils, and were then place in iron woks over flames, in order to stop them from oxidizing further. The leaves were then dried, and ready to be packaged up for shipment or sale.<ref name=matsuda/>
The first sample batches of tea reached England around [[1664]]. By the 1830s, more than 30 million pounds of tea were shipped from China to Britain every year.<ref name=matsuda/>
==History==
Tea might have been first introduced to Japan in [[805]], when [[Saicho|Saichô]] brought ''camellia sinensis'' seeds back from China. It first grew to significant popularity in China only about a hundred years earlier.<ref>Gallery labels, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco.</ref>
Powdered tea is believed to have been introduced to Japan by [[Eisai]] in [[1191]], along with [[Rinzai]] [[Zen]].<ref>Conrad Schirokauer, David Lurie, and Suzanne Gay, ''A Brief History of Japanese Civilization'', Wadsworth Cengage (2013), 81.</ref>
The first sample batches of tea reached England around [[1664]]. By the 1830s, more than 30 million pounds of tea were shipped from China to Britain every year.<ref name=matsuda/> Tea + [[silk]] constituted at least 50% of Chinese exports throughout the 19th century, peaking as high as 92% in 1842 and 93.5% in 1868, though this figure fell to 64.5% in 1890, just before the turn of the century. At least 40% of tea production in China was for export, and 50-70% of silk production, all the way to the 1920s.<ref>Joseph Esherick, "Harvard on China: The Apologetics of Imperialism." ''Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars'' 4:4 (1972), 10.</ref>
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