It involves the preparation and drinking of sencha green tea, especially the high grade gyokuro type.
Towards the end of the 17th century in the Edo period, Chinese merchants visiting Nagasaki showed how brewed tea should be drunk, as practised in the Ming dynasty court.
This practise of the Chinese tea culture spread in the 18th century until the beginning of the Meiji era, particularly among literati merchants, in the form of friends meeting in a less formal atmosphere than the chanoyu.
These meetings, often followed by genuine meals, were the opportunity to admire the host's collections, most often composed of objects imported from China or made in Japan in Chinese style called karamono.
In spring 2020 the Aichi Prefectural Ceramic Museum in cooperation with Meiji-mura held a large sencha exhibition about Kimura Teizo, an outstanding art collector born in Nagoya.