The Story of Japanese Tea by Tyas Sōsen

I was first introduced to this book by my old bosses in Spain. It was published just a month after I moved to Japan in 2019. They told me about a new book about matcha, which they are interested in learning more about, despite always relying on our importers or trips to Uji to learn more.

Soon after that initial introduction by them, I purchased a copy myself. At that time, I was just about 1 hour away from the shop that Tyas runs in the heart of Kyoto. I wanted to read the book before visiting him in his shop. Unfortunately, at the beginning of 2020, a lockdown due to Covid-19 was in place. Unable to visit the shop for what was going to be the remainder of my time in Japan. The lockdown fully allowed me to read the book without much break in between.

The reading experience

The book caught my attention from the beginning. In the introductory pages, the author sets up his ideas and definitions of the book. I found this to be essential, as it sets the tone for the majority of the underlying opinions of the book. I will use his definitions to make it easier to understand the book contents, but more importantly because I share most of the same ideas as Tyas.

Chapter breakdown

Great initial round-up of knowledge

This book begins with the cultivation and manufacturing of tea. A great deal of knowledge in those two initial chapters. The first chapter focuses on soil management and growing conditions in mountains and flatlands. Also, how the bushes from cuttings vs seed grown are different from each other.

The second chapter is dedicated to green tea manufacturing, with a great deal of information on steamed and pan-fired methods. Personally, I really enjoyed the pan-fired method section a lot, as it goes into historical details and styles of manufacturing.

Main dish

The third chapter is perhaps the densest, exclusively focused on matcha. It outlines every single aspect of it, history, culture, and the incorporation of tea into the Japanese culture, cultivation, harvesting, production blending and an explanation about quality. This last explanation is vital, as it does not only clarify merely a grading, but how a loosely defined system was completely fumbled with the popularisation of matcha abroad.

It was perhaps one of the slowest reading chapters, as it is populated with a wealth of information. I read it a couple of times in its entirety and still felt like some pieces needed to be stitched together. In the end, I did learn a high volume of information. An aspect that was meaningful to learn for me was the historical background. Matcha and the tea ceremony are closely related topics that western cultures have yet to grasp entirely. This historical background of tea culture brought a fresh, more profound perspective to this part of the tea culture I have always found difficult to understand.

Other interesting topics

The last chapters give us insight into the oxidised styles of tea. As well as Bancha. Oxidised teas are a very fascinating case in the Japanese tea industry. Japanese tea is almost exclusively regarded as green tea, but there is a market for Japanese black and Oolong teas. They are different, and they should be appreciated for how they are. I am genuinely interested in the direction they will shape the tea industry in the future.

We are living in an enormous transitional period for Japanese tea. Oxidised-style teas could, in my opinion, give farmers more tools to diversify and maintain their fields. But also an entirely different oxidised profile only found in Japan. If you have tried black Japanese tea, maybe you have seen a difference in how they compare with the same style in other countries like China or India, to mention just a few.

Guidelines with an important remark

The book ends up with guidelines on brewing, tasting, and storage. Personally, brewing outlines are always a bit boring to read. While they can be a baseline to start your journey, one can get too attached to these defined lines. I agree with the author here that the tea you are drinking is the present tea. No guidelines, no rules, brew for yourself by yourself.

A great book

If there is one book any enthusiast should read, I cannot recommend this book enough. It presents a great balance of information, terms and definitions, both from the Japanese language and the tea industry. While it offers a highly opinionated view on tea, it is not a constant hammer against the now standard method of cultivation. On its pages, you will also find a great and necessary explanation of conventional, organic and natural cultivation of tea.

It is important to hear voices like Tyas's. That, although some people might label them as conservative or traditionalist. Looking at tea through the lenses of what tea was and has been forgotten. We see again what tea was, in the beginning, to move forward again. In my view, he is a devoted tea master that gives a great outline of the evolution of tea through the Japanese culture, but also through the lenses of an industry understanding. We can see how market and industry changes shaped tea into something else from the original beverage we think we are drinking.

More about the author’s work

Tyas runs a beautiful online tea shop, the tea crane, and continues sharing information and knowledge through his blog and YouTube channel. I recommend anyone to watch a more conversational series he has with his assistant Linnea. They cover interesting topics, and he is not afraid to express his standpoint firmly.