Which tea has the longest history, sencha, gyokuro or matcha?

Do you know since when we have been drinking tea in Japan? 

I have attended a lecture for Japanese tea history.  I learned that some classic beliefs don’t have corroborative evidences, and some of them may not be true.  This lecture taught the history by introducing historical sources of the time.  It was pretty interesting and I learned the modern understanding of the history.

The oldest historical paper about tea is Nihonkoki.  In the document, it is said “Eichu served tea to the Emperor” (815A.D.).  You cannot tell exactly what kind of tea it was, but it was decocted tea.  So, you can say that the history of our tea started about 1200 years ago, at least.   

Then, what do you think of the question in the title of this entry?  When the teas that we enjoy nowadays: sencha, gyokuro or matcha were born?  (If you are not familiar with these teas, look at the note at the bottom of this entry)  Which has the longest history?   Tea cultures were originally introduced from China at times, and they were uniquely developed in Japan.  We created sencha, gyokuro and matcha here.

The answer is : (From the oldest)

Matcha - around the 16^th century

Sencha - around the 18^th century

Gyokuro – around the early 19^th century

Matcha is the oldest, and surprisingly gyokuro is yougest in the tea history. 

We had powdered tea that is prepared by mixing hot water since 12^th century, but its tea plants were grew only under the sun.  I guess the people were drinking much bitterer tea than now (^^;;  The matcha with covering cultivation like nowadays were started around the 16^th.  At the beginning, the covering cultivation was not for improving the taste, it is originally to prevent frost damage.

The tea has been improved in the long history.  You can say that canned and bottled teas are inventions of our contemporary time.  I’m looking forward to new tea!

Note

	Description	Form	Preparation
Sencha	Most common green tea	Needle shaped leaf	Brewing in a teapot
Gyokuro	Premium green tea
Matcha	Powdered green tea	Milled powder	Mixing with hot water