[4][5][6] Shade growing gives matcha its characteristic bright green color and strong umami flavor.

The characteristic bright green color is due to the increased chloroplasts that the plants need to collect more light in the shade.

Shading increases the amount of caffeine and total free amino acids but also reduces the accumulation of catechins in leaves.

Specifically, matcha for koicha and usucha are stored in special containers, chaire (茶入) and natsume (棗), respectively.

Matcha and hot water are then put in a chawan (茶碗), the bowl, and stirred with chasen (茶筅), a whisk usually made from bamboo.

[5] The majority of matcha is produced in Japan, where it is highly regarded as part of the tea ceremony (chanoyu (茶の湯)), but rarely used otherwise.

It is also used as flavouring in many Western-style chocolates, candy, and desserts, such as cakes and pastries, including Swiss rolls and cheesecake, cookies, pudding, mousse, and green tea ice cream.

[43][44] This increase in matcha-based drinks in the U.S. is driven by a rise in consumer interest in healthier beverage options, with many opting for matcha due to its perceived health benefits and lower caffeine content compared to coffee.

[45][46] The tea was also sometimes mixed with green onions, ginger, jujubes, mandarin orange peels, Tetradium ruticarpum, and mint.

[51] The complex manufacturing process of lump tea during the Song dynasty required significant labor and money, and even the slightest error could lead to failure.

However, during the Song dynasty, this ideal was forcibly replaced by four characteristics: "aroma, sweetness, richness, and smoothness" (Treatise on Tea).

At that time, the Song dynasty production method was still in effect, and all the tea offered was ground and kneaded with a medicine grinder into a shape known as a Lóngtuán (龍團, lit.

However, in September of the 24th year of Hongwu, the emperor had the production of lóngtuán discontinued due to the heavy burden on the people's power.

[52] Some historians have pointed out that since the Ming Dynasty was a heavily agriculturalist dynasty with a strong spirit of respect for the military, and the Hongwu Emperor was a man who had risen from the lowest strata of society, he may have disliked the excessively refined and extravagant compressed tea.

It is found in an entry in the Nihon Kōki having to do with the Buddhist monk Eichū (永忠), who is thought to have brought some tea back to Japan on his return from China.

The entry states that Eichū personally prepared and served sencha (煎茶) to Emperor Saga, who was on an excursion in Karasaki (in present Shiga Prefecture) in 815.

[55] Matcha is generally believed to have been introduced to Japan from the Song Dynasty (China) by Zen monk Eisai in 1191, along with tea seeds.

In Japan, the word "matcha" first appears in the Japanese language dictionary Unpo Iroha Shū (1548) compiled in the Muromachi period (1336–1573).

[54] However, this book was published about 100 years after Eisai, and no documents have been found to indicate whether those words were introduced to Japan and changed to matcha by the 16th century.

In Japan, matcha became an important item at Zen monasteries, and from the 14th through the 16th centuries, it was highly appreciated by members of the upper echelons of society.

Among the upper classes, the act of drinking tea on expensive Chinese ceramics called karamono (唐物, lit.

The wabi-sabi aesthetic, which finds beauty in modesty, simplicity, and imperfection, came to be emphasized along with the tea ceremony.

It was conventionally believed that the method of growing tea plants in the shade by covering them with straw or reeds originated in Japan in the late 16th century.

For example, the Portuguese missionary João Rodrigues Tçuzu, who came to Japan in 1577, wrote about shaded cultivation in his History of the Japanese Church (Historia da Igreja do Japão) in 1604.

However, recent soil analyses of Uji tea plantations have revealed that it began in the first half of the 15th century at the latest.

By blocking sunlight, photosynthesis in tea leaves is inhibited, preventing the transformation of theanine, a component of umami, into tannins, the source of bitterness and astringency, resulting in the growth of tea leaves with a high umami content.

[61] It has also been reported that shaded cultivation increases the amount of chlorophyll within tea leaves, resulting in a bright green color.

Grandmother was Myōshūni (妙秀尼, died 1598), daughter of Rokkaku Yoshikata, who married Kanbayashi Hisashige.

The event of transporting tea jars from Uji, Kyoto, to Edo (now Tokyo) to present to the shogun was called Ochatsubo Dōchū (御茶壺道中, lit.

[67] After the Meiji Restoration (1868), Uji tea growers, who had monopolized the production of tencha under shaded cultivation, lost their privileged position.