A Window into the Green Tea Culture of Japan

Sabrina Baycroft, 15727150

Anthro 210, Fessenden

A window into the green tea culture of Japan

        For many generations, green tea has been the most widely drunken beverage in Japan. It is for this reason that green tea holds very important meaning in Japanese culture, one being that it is used as a medium in maintaining social bonds through hospitable acts. Green tea has also been used in ways of symbolic form through tea ceremonies, where the specific handling of green tea facilitates the course of one’s self-realization and inner peace. It allows for one to connect with their inner selves as well as connecting to their collective identity of being Japanese. Through this essay I will talk about the significance and use of green tea in Japan to demonstrate how globalization can completely erase generations of the culturally constructed meanings of food.

        Green tea in Japan is not considered just a beverage in Japan. For one, it is consumed for the purpose of health benefits. Each type of green tea holds different nutritional elements; it is also considered to be a great antioxidant and is believed to hold curative powers, especially when one is sick (Hibachi, 2017). Another major purpose of its use is to serve the beverage to guests as a form of hospitality. Japanese restaurants usually provide customers with an unlimited amount of green tea free of charge as a form of welcoming and friendliness. Where in North America guests are usually offered something to drink like wine, juice or water upon arrival, in Japan it is custom to automatically have the tea ready to be served before the party has even arrived. Like the Bhajas, the Kenyan foods that are provided to the guests as a form of respect and hospitality, green tea in Japan is used as a mediator in creating and maintaining relationships with their guests. One has to be aware though as there are many different kinds of green tea in which each kind is meant to be served at a certain and appropriate time to mark different occasions and differentiate relationship distances between the hosts and the guests (Kasumigaseki, 2007). For example, sencha, which is where the green tea leaves are whole and infused with hot water, are meant to be drunken on a daily basis after a meal or before playing a sport to help with thirst (Kasumigaseki, 2007). It is for this reason that it would not be very appropriate to serve this kind of green tea to a guest with which one is not of close relations. Rather it is more appropriate to serve more expensive, high quality green tea such as gyokuro (requires very complicated production methods) during these occasions. The more formal an occasion tends to be, the more luxurious are the green tea leaves that are used. For family or for oneself, one will usually infuse tea bags with hot water out of convenience and ease of preparation. On the other hand, when guests are invited, there is much more that goes into the preparation of the green tea. High quality loose-leaf green tea leaves are served in a Japanese tea pot called a kyusu. Before inserting the loose green tea leaves in the pot, the host will usually fill the kyusu with hot water. This is meant to heat up the pot so that the heat of the water is retained. The water is then poured into the ceramic cups which are to be drunken out of with the same purpose of preheating the kyusu. After doing so, the water is poured out and the kyusu is refilled with hot water with the green tea leaves being added into the filter in the water. After waiting for about three to five minutes, the host will serve the green tea in the hot ceramic cups and place them on a Japanese tea coaster rather than placing the cup directly onto the table. It is custom for the host to wait until the guest has had a sip of the tea before drinking as a sign of politeness. Alongside the tea, small and sweet Japanese snacks usually filled with red bean are served to compliment the taste of the tea. This propriety of serving tea in the right way to guests is meant to not only show the host’s respect and hospitality toward the party member(s), but is also meant to fulfill the culturally constructed aesthetics (Anderson, 1987).

        Japanese green tea is not only served during social occasions for the purpose of being a hospitable host, but it is also used in a structured, ceremonial-like way for one to connect with themselves, to focus on the present. Like fasting and feasting ceremonies practiced in Muslim culture, the Japanese tea ceremony is a learned and well-practiced ritual that has a very rigid structure, holding different cultural meanings and is symbolic at each stage (Anderson, 1987). Unlike theater where its main purpose is to entertain its audience, this ritual is meant to engage the audience in achieving efficacy, mainly toward  “[one’s] inner essence of reality” (Kondo, 1985). The people who are performing are fully participating in the ritual, holding no judgment or criticism toward the person leading the ceremony (Holland, 2000). Green tea powder known as matcha is the main element in this ritual, and is the conductor of the spiritual journey that one takes in achieving mindfulness. The great deal of focus and attention that goes into the ritual’s formal features enables the person to “change [the] state in the actor’s thought and feeling” (Kondo, 1985). Although the tea is the main component used throughout the ritual, the drinking of the tea is not the reason for this whole ceremony; rather, it is the aesthetics of the ritual that are rooted through Zen Buddism that is emphasized (Kondo, 1985). The graceful actions used to make the tea and the simple layout of the ceremony is meant for the person to self-realize their emptiness, in other words to get in touch with their sense of selflessness and become free from all thoughts and feelings (Kondo, 1985). It is this that defines the self-realization in mindfulness. By way of using matcha green tea in this specific way, people are able to connect with not only themselves, but also perform better in the Japanese community as “etiquette and grace are integral facets of Japanese culture” (Website with epic matcha).