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The chajin lifts their right arm, enveloped in an oversized sleeve, bringing a silk cloth carefully to chest level. They begin a sequence of four major folding motions. Each crease is calculated as it cleans the rim of an intricately designed bowl. Below, every utensil waits in its assigned place. The water slowly backs off its boil, first into a string of pearls, then fish eyes, before settling into the desired state.

Every facet of Japanese tea ceremony is deliberate, even before a single gram of powder touches water.

For centuries, chajin, or tea practitioners, have been preparing matcha this way. The practice of whisking powdered tea leaves originated in Song China, but was later preserved in Japanese monasteries centuries after it faded in its birthplace.

In the last 25 years that has fundamentally changed.

Today, more than half of Japan’s matcha is sent overseas, much of it ending up in trendy cafés where it’s appreciated for very different reasons than those that shaped it. The final product often more closely resembling a mocha frappuccino than a meditative aid.

How does that impact those who cherish it most?

I came here to find out.

Before the turn of the century, matcha remained largely confined to Japan and its diaspora communities abroad.

Then it started to go global.

First it was a niche wellness drink favored by yogis, health bloggers, and the macrobiotically obsessed. Steeped green tea is often lauded for the health benefits brought on by minimal oxidation. Matcha goes a step further: the entire leaf is stone-ground into a fine powder, allowing drinkers to consume the plant itself rather than an infusion of it.

As the world slowly discovered matcha, its next phase of growth was already taking shape.

In 2001, Starbucks Japan introduced the Matcha Cream Frappuccino. Five years later, Starbucks added it to its U.S. menu as a ‘Green Tea Latte.’ For the first time, matcha had a global café chain capable of introducing it to millions of customers. Arguably more importantly, in the U.S., matcha wasn’t being introduced through tea culture at all. It was being normalized by the coffee industry that dominated daily routines.

That was only the beginning. Its greatest accelerator turned out to be algorithmic.

By 2020 TikTok and Instagram discovered the same thing that 16th century Uji farmers did when they started shading their tea trees before harvest. Matcha was visually irresistible. Shades of jade, emerald, and wheatgrass with shimmering translucent pearls settling in a foam on its surface.

It’s vibrant, yet minimalist. Aesthetic while also healthy.

Matcha became more than a drink, it became an identity statement.

But matcha, at its core, is an acquired taste. Certainly for a typical American palate, where bitterness, grassiness, and umami aren’t exactly sought after. So in order to make it more familiar, much of the matcha consumed abroad was combined with milk, ice, sweeteners, and fruit syrups.

I had my own preconceptions about all of this. But before deciding what I thought, I wanted to hear from the people who had inherited the tradition. To families who had spent decades farming, blending, and preparing matcha, was this a welcome evolution—or the beginning of something they’d come to regret?

I asked Tetsuya, the sixth generation to run his family’s tea business and the president of the Shizuoka Tea Association. He started with the farmer’s perspective. International demand, he explained, gives tea farmers a future at a time when many are struggling to survive.

That much made sense. But he went a step further.

Foreign consumers, he argued, are often willing to pay for higher-quality matcha. That demand rewards traditional cultivation and processing methods that might otherwise disappear. That directly counters the domestic trend toward bottled teas, where lower-quality leaves can be blended and processed into inexpensive drinks. Outsiders weren’t just buying tea, they were helping save it as well.

But Tetsuya spoke as a businessman. What about the tea masters? The ones who’d spent decades apprenticing just to make a single cup.

I asked Naoko, a chajin from Tokyo, about her thoughts on rising overseas interest. She said that, in a way, it drove her toward matcha. After spending her middle school years in Connecticut, she wanted a way to interact with foreigners back home.

“So I studied tea ceremony.”

It isn’t her primary job. Her days are spent behind a desk in a Shibuya high-rise. But now nights and weekends are dedicated to sharing her culture with the world. Impeccably dressed in an inherited kimono she practically glides through the choreographed steps. Five years on, Naoko feels she’s found the passion and purpose she’d lacked as a young adult.

I posed the same question to Akira, a Kyoto-born chajin. Ironically, it was foreigners who led him back to Japanese tea as well.

“It was not until I moved to the U.S. that I realized how little I knew.”

Friends would ask him basic questions about his own culture that he couldn’t answer. Embarrassed, he eventually chose to move back to Kyoto to take over his family’s kimono shop. At the same time he reconnected with a local monk, a childhood idol, to study tea ceremony under her. It’s a practice he carries on in her memory for visitors from all over the world.

By now, I’d heard some version of this story several times on The Tea Trail. The MBA student in Seoul, the math teacher from Beijing, and the executive assistant in Tokyo. All of them grew up with an affinity for Western culture only to realize they’d become enamored at the expense of understanding their own.

Nor was it limited to tea. I found the same pattern in calligraphy, ceramics, textiles, and countless other crafts. Again and again, I found globalization pushing young people back toward the very traditions many feared it would erase. Adoption by those outside their culture didn’t dilute their interest; it emboldened it.

Not everyone I spoke to, though, was quite so elated.

“I’m glad that matcha is really popular, because Japanese culture has become famous around the world,” said a third chajin, pausing for a moment, her eyes drifting down to the floor.

“But on the other hand, the most attractive part of the tea ceremony is the heart, showing service to guests, about creating peace.”

She shook her head and met my eyes once again.

“I just want people to know more about the original matcha too.”

This wasn’t the first time I’d come across a tradition wrestling with what happens when outsiders fall in love with it. In certain ways, it reminded me of the early 2000s, when newly wealthy Chinese buyers began to fancy Swiss watches, Scottish whisky, and French wine.

At first this was a welcome change for producers, delighted to find an entirely new group of customers. But that elation quickly turned into unease as hushed stories started to circulate in wine circles: “those billionaires are taking Chateau Lafite Rothschild, and mixing it with… Coca-Cola.”

Those rumors ended up being mostly debunked, but it was true that lesser, yet still artfully crafted wines were being combined with soda. Faced with unfamiliar flavors, many consumers reached for something they already knew.

I found one of the most poignant voices in the Chinese-born, British-based wine scholar Janet Wang, who wrote:

“It is a great pity to waste something fine on the uninterested, when it could have brought much joy to a discerning drinker, or someone eager to learn. If a wine is made with a great deal of skill and love, intended to be enjoyed in its glorious unadulterated form, it deserves to be treated so, not least to appreciate the people who worked hard to give it life and art.”

She then adds a more centering perspective.

“This knowledge will also come with learning and experimenting… It is my opinion that a two way exchange of culture, to draw on common feelings and finding cultural parallels, would be infinitely more potent in communicating ideas than any unilateral preaching programme.”

Her point wasn’t that people shouldn’t experiment. It was that appreciation takes time—and that culture rarely moves in only one direction.

Back in Tokyo, I walked into another café, and a couple of tourists ahead of me ordered a first flush Ogurayama matcha, one of Uji’s finest. Then they asked for it with oat milk and blueberry syrup.

My instinct was to cringe.

I had just visited those tea fields, spent weeks learning about the painstaking effort required in its production, and watched experts spend hours of focus on just four cups of it.

But I thought back to every conversation I’d had over that time.

Maybe I’d been asking the wrong question.

Was it fair to expect an entirely new demographic to be both willing and able to inherit someone else’s practice at face value? To forgo something that makes them happy because they have not “earned” the right to enjoy it?

I’d spent weeks wondering whether outsiders were appreciating tea correctly. Maybe the more important question was whether appreciation had ever begun with perfect understanding in the first place.

I don’t know whether the millions of people ordering vanilla matcha lattes with whipped cream will ever sit on a tatami mat across from someone with generations of heritage. Honestly, most probably won’t.

But some will.

And those lattes will become their first bowl. That curiosity will grow into study. And study will eventually lead to stewardship.

In a world of dying art forms, maybe we can’t afford to be so picky about how they are sustained. Because traditions endure not by remaining untouched, but by allowing each generation to find its own way to value them.

Sources

• The Japan Times. “Matcha shortage: Global demand forces Japan to rethink production.” February 23, 2025.

• Wine Peek. “So What’s Wrong with Mixing Château Lafite and Coca-Cola Anyway?” November 25, 2013.

• The Economic Times. “Why Matcha Is Trending Everywhere: From Boosting Heart Health to Weight Loss, This Over-800-Year-Old Tea Surprisingly Beats Coffee & Chai in Many Ways.” June 19, 2025.

• Queens Gazette. “Green Tea Joins Starbucks Menu.” April 19, 2006.

• Japan Today. “Starbucks Matcha Marches into VIA Lineup with New Japan-Exclusive Green Tea Drink Mix.” July 2025.

The Tea Trail — Japan is supported by

MAASS — Fort Lauderdale, FL

Supporting storytelling about craftsmanship, hospitality, and culture.

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Days here generally begin the same way. A bit dazed after another night spent editing later than I would have liked, I roll over to my phone to see what happened overnight. A few scores go final. Texts are exchanged. Someone says something outrageous. It goes viral. Not much has changed and now everyone back home is getting ready to go to bed.

Eventually I get myself out into the world, but don’t really integrate into it. Moving from place to place as anonymously as a white guy a head taller than the crowd can possibly do.

I’ve learned a bit of Japanese, but not nearly enough to sustain a conversation. English fluency has improved dramatically in recent years, but communication still rarely comes easily. Even those who are proficient, I’ve found, are often hesitant to use it.

After enough days without really talking to anyone, I began to notice how little human interaction everyday life actually required. A few coins dropped into a vending machine deliver my morning tea. A touchscreen takes my ramen order and I plant myself at the counter. Maps guide me effortlessly between cities, going door to door without a second wasted. I scan my passport at the check-in station and my hotel key drops into a tray, sending me up the elevator to my newest accommodations.

My life here is easy, efficient, and consistent. Things that can’t be said for travel in much of the world. But those moments are frankly forgettable. It’s three others that stand out.

Tomopy was introduced to me through Chef Ryan’s publicist. She held no formal title other than the unofficial cheerleader of her small city of Sukagawa, yet she was willing to drop everything to show me around. She picked me up in the light pink Suzuki Kei she’d inherited from her mother, then took me to her favorite breakfast spot overlooking the bamboo forest. A wall of doors stood open, letting the cool morning breeze drift inside. We sat down and got to know each other over boiled eggs, toast, and some hojicha from last autumn’s harvest.

She took me from place to place, proudly showing off the home of Ultraman and the Haiku trail that brought fame to her little corner of the world. She introduced me to family and friends. Her radio studio, her son’s school for afternoon pickup, the man who has acted like a father to her since her own had passed away. Each a window into the life that she was so proud of.

As she prepared to drop me off at the train station that evening she turned and said:

“I can’t believe we just met this morning.”

We began the day as strangers and ended it as old friends.

A week or so later I stumbled upon Ken in a sunken log cabin in the mountains of Shizuoka. He was sprawled out on the floor, enjoying the mountain mist floating in through the open windows, peacefully stroking the cat that had jumped onto his thigh. It took a few moments to get his attention but as soon as I did he sprang into action to shepherd me inside.

He explained that it was actually his home that doubled as a Yakiniku, or barbecue restaurant, open by reservation only. He made me some first flush sencha from the farm down the road and showed me photos of neighbors jamming on the various string and reed instruments that were nestled into every corner of the room.

We talked about where I was from, I asked him about the area, and he became fixated on the price of McDonald’s in the States (he was thrilled to learn about the Big Mac Index). But somehow the conversation drifted back to the nights when the place was filled, each seat occupied with neighbors from the village.

I could picture it immediately. Drinks flowing. Wood coals crackling beneath wagyu and vegetables from his garden. Amateur musicians pouring themselves into every riff. The rousing applause from the dozen or so gathered there, as heartfelt as if the musicians had been performing for thousands.

He spoke with genuine affection. He insisted the place wasn’t much—dark, cramped, and falling apart. Yet every story he told returned to the people inside it. You could tell he knew the building meant far less than the community that congregated there.

Eventually it was time to move on. I attempted to pay him for the tea, but he refused.

“You can pay me by coming to visit again”

Then there’s Kayo. I was standing on the sidewalk in the Kiso valley, in the foothills of the Japanese Alps, when I heard footsteps.

“Picture?” she asked.

“Yes.” I replied, smiling just as broadly as the great-grandmother now standing in front of me. She was beautifully dressed from head to toe, a sparkling necklace serving as the outfit’s centerpiece.

“Of what?” She inquired.

That exchange set into motion more than I could have imagined.

Then, without another word, she started walking. Assuming but uncertain that she intended me to follow, I lagged behind a little way until she stopped to see why it was taking me so long.

She took me to the town’s main temple, slowly making our way through the central gate to take in the maples, cherry blossoms, and dogwoods that had grown over the pathway. She paused at the temple’s entrance, explaining that her father was one of the main carpenters on the project over a hundred years ago. She gently placed her belongings at the base of the stairs and pressed her hands in front of her chest before taking a long bow at its altar. I quietly mirrored her movements in a moment of reflection.

From there we made our way to the gravesites. To pay our respects to her father and husband who were buried near one another. We repeated the same quiet ritual.

She stopped and asked me, “House five minutes. Okay?”

I told her, of course, and she led me down a steep path to the place where she raised her family, being sure to point out her summer annuals in bloom.

She gave me a tour, constantly emphasizing how small it was. The space was filled with life. She introduced me to her parakeet and beta fish. She pointed out family photos and trophies from placing in dancing competitions all over the prefecture. She led us back to the living room to pay our respects a third time at the shrine she keeps, dedicated to the departed.

She disappeared into the kitchen in search of something for an unexpected guest. I tried my best to encourage her to sit and relax but she insisted. She returned with a handful of snacks and two glasses of sobacha before finally settling in.

We sat there for hours as the rain began to come down, creating movement in an otherwise peaceful view of the hillside. She told me about each of her children. Who they’d married, what they did for a living, the lives they went on to build for themselves. She told me about her travels to New York City and Prince Edward Island. About the time her whole family went to cheer on her son Itaru at the 2006 Olympics in Turin. Describing the mania of excitement and pride as he dropped in, in pursuit of his dream.

There were plenty of small breaks in our conversation, often brought on by language fatigue or a loss in context. Each was filled by a sip of tea or a bite of fruit before a new thought popped up.

For the rest of the week, she stopped at my hotel each time she passed by. A few days later we met for matcha and egg sandwiches at her daughter-in-law’s café. Our final meeting back in the lobby was to exchange letters and gifts. I left her the best gyokuro I'd tasted in Japan. She slipped me an envelope with a few origami cranes, a drawing, and a letter.

I opened it after returning to my room, my heart already full.

Thank you for the wonderful days.

They became one of the best memories of my life. You are very kind and generous.

I hope you enjoy the rest of your time in Japan.

Take care and stay healthy. I hope to see you again someday.

Best regards,
Kayo

I did not come to Japan in search of a lesson in loneliness. I came here to understand tea.

Instead, I found myself thinking about the people who insisted on sharing it.

Every meaningful interaction shared one thing: time. Time to stumble through a conversation that neither of us fully understood. Time for conversations to wander. Time for strangers to become something more familiar.

Human connection needs more than proximity. It needs permission. A reason to stay seated. To put your phone away. To stop worrying about what comes next.

That’s so much of what tea has always done.

Long before it was bottled, branded, or sold for convenience, tea gave people permission to slow down together—to accept hospitality, to linger. The drink was never the point. The space it created was.

Three months into this journey, the thousand cups of tea have started to blend together. The people I shared them with never will.

The Tea Trail — Japan is supported by

MAASS — Fort Lauderdale, FL

Supporting storytelling about craftsmanship, hospitality, and culture.

📸 Instagram | 🎥 TikTok | 🎬 YouTube

📸 Instagram | 🎥 TikTok | 🎬 YouTube

I met Chef Ryan Ratino about three years ago, when he was preparing to open MAASS, his first restaurant outside of Washington D.C. Despite being just a few years older than me, he had already become one of the youngest two-star Michelin chefs in America, earning recognition across the industry.

What struck me most, though, weren’t the accolades. It was his work ethic.

Chef Ryan talked about sleeping on a restaurant banquette after service so he could be ready for the next morning’s deliveries. About obsessing over details he knew most people would never notice. About building a dining experience worthy of the farmers, fishermen, artisans, and producers whose work arrived in his kitchen each day.

Five Michelin stars later, those standards haven’t changed.

That’s why I’m excited to announce MAASS as the title sponsor for The Tea Trail – Japan.

The more time I spend here, the more I see similarities across industries. Tea farmers obsess over the timing of a harvest by the hour. Ceramicists apprentice for years refining a single form. Craftsmen dedicate entire careers to perfecting techniques that remain invisible to the untrained eye.

It’s an approach that feels strikingly familiar to what Chef and his team pursue every day in their restaurants.

Chef Ryan was one of the very first people I called when I decided to embark on The Tea Trail. From the beginning, he and the Hive Hospitality team have been generous with introductions, recommendations, and local connections that have helped me reach the people at the heart of Japan’s tea culture. As those conversations continued, it became clear we shared a common belief: the people behind extraordinary products deserve to have their stories told.

That’s what this partnership is about.

Great restaurants honor great ingredients. The very best honor the people behind them.

MAASS
525 N Fort Lauderdale Beach Blvd
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33304

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📸 Instagram | 🎥 TikTok | 🎬 YouTube

The final minutes were ticking down in Japan’s opening World Cup match against the Netherlands. The Samurai Blue were down 2–1 and the room had grown noticeably tense. A few men sat, hands wringing. Some paced near the undersized television. Others stood motionless, seemingly resigned to a disappointing result.

Then Daichi Kamada put one in the back of the net and the crowd erupted. A celebration worthy of a proud nation with deep tournament aspirations.

But suddenly a voice came over the loudspeakers and the focus quickly shifted.

The clock was about to hit 7:00 and the doors to Japan’s largest wholesale tea market were preparing to swing open. I got in line, but craned my neck to see if any more last-minute heroics were in store.

We’re not going to wait five minutes?

I walked into this building for the first time a few days earlier expecting baskets of overflowing tea and hordes of people coming in and out. Instead, I found an office park. Inside the entryway, there was a laboratory to my right and rows of workstations to my left.

It was quickly established that this market wasn’t open to the public, plus there wasn’t even any tea there. But after making my way through a few different representatives I found myself invited to Monday morning’s auction.

“Be there at 6:50… maybe even a bit earlier,” the host was already skeptical of my interpretation of punctuality.

I walked through the doors at 6:40 sharp. The empty hall I’d seen a few days before was already filled with about 100 people, each wearing a hat corresponding to their role. Tea farmers sported green, marketplace employees wore yellow. Light blue was for the press, red for government officials.

But the largest group wore dark blue, donned by merchants waiting outside the exhibition hall’s doors. An exclusion no one seemed to be particularly upset about on match day.

Tetsuya walked in and bestowed upon me a dark blue hat of my own. “You need to wear this, otherwise you can’t go inside.”

As soon as the doors opened, blue hats flooded the room and merged into the sea of yellow and green. They rushed to tables lined with black plastic trays filled with tea from the prior day’s harvest. Their job was to quickly assess the tea’s quality and begin negotiations before another buyer could claim it.

They first inspected the raw leaves, taking handfuls and shaking them out from above, activating their aromas. Anything under serious consideration was scooped up and carried over to tasting sinks where 15 industrial-sized kettles blew steam from every opening, always at the ready.

My host, Tetsuya, is the president of the Shizuoka Tea Association. A sixth-generation tea merchant and 10th-level tea master, he is one of only 30 people to have achieved the country’s highest ranking in its 70-year history.

“And half of them are from Shizuoka,” he added.

So this market is often home to the greatest density of Japanese tea experts in the world and I had the pleasure of seeing it through the eyes of one of the very best.

Standing just outside the rush of passersby, Tetsuya explained that they were currently in a seller’s market.

“There is still rising demand for tencha,” he said, referring to the semi-processed tea eventually turned into matcha. Many farmers had invested in the equipment required to produce it, as tencha can fetch prices 3-4 times higher than the more common sencha.

We moved past them to a set of second flush senchas, their leaves larger than the rest. “Most second flush is now being used for RTD (ready-to-drink). So the way it’s cut doesn’t matter as much because the consumer will never see it.” He lingered on that thought for a moment until we were interrupted, joined by the local journalist who first introduced us. It turned out he’d been stewing on a question for him.

“How much less tea was sold in the first flush compared to last year?” Tetsuya asked.

“10%,” he replied.

“And the harvest yielded 30% more tea per acre,” Tetsuya added.

Supply and demand going in opposite directions.

The organized chaos of tea bargaining continued in the back of the room. Once a buyer was ready to negotiate, they called over one of the market reps to facilitate the trade. Everyone appeared calm, and while I could only read body language, there seemed to be a mutual respect for the other’s expertise. Once they started talking numbers, the rep would make calculations with an abacus, their fingers displaying the dexterity of a concert pianist.

This could have been happening a hundred fifty years ago.

The front of the room was different. There were two rows of trays with no seller at their side. Instead, a pool of buyers slowly circled the product like sharks, sizing up everything around them.

Because this year, the market introduced a new element: silent auctions run through an app.

We moved toward one of the special pieces in this section, a lot of first-flush okumidori tencha, rare for this late in the season. Starting bid: ¥5,000 per kilogram, already 2.5 times the price of anything else in sight.

“I expect it to go for ¥12,000,” Tetsuya said.

He was in the market for some tencha on behalf of one of his more discerning clients based out of Bangkok. I followed his lead as we used our gloved hands to grab a handful and bring it to our nose.

“You’re looking for umami and sweetness,” he sniffed intently. “Then the regional aroma that makes it unique.”

I raised some freshly brewed leaves to my nose. The first smelled of dull grass, while the second was much more vibrant. I took a swig of the oversteeped liquor meant to bring out its weaknesses. One batch was clearly better than the other, exactly as Tetsuya had described it.

“It won’t meet her standards.” Without another word, he was already walking toward the next tray.

“Much of the tea trade has relied on relationships,” Tetsuya said, a shared history that allowed transactions with limited information. “Some people feel that the digital auctions have the farmers taking advantage of a seller’s market when the buyers helped the sellers through bad times just a few years ago.”

During COVID, raw tea pricing was down more than 70%. Many businesses failed, others were pushed into early retirement, unable or unwilling to work through the pain. Tetsuya noted that if it weren’t for certain buyers continuing to do business with their normal counterparts, even paying inflated prices to keep them afloat, more would have folded.

But he also noted he wasn’t so sure that the changes were all that bad.

“The online system allows newer traders to buy or sell tea without established relationships.” A quick look around the room shows why. The room was occupied almost exclusively by older Japanese men.

What a silent auction does is ensure that the best tea wins, no matter who’s involved.

I found myself dwelling on the two modes of sale.

Which is better? A system that has little emotion, but also little bias? Or one that relies on partnerships in both good and bad?

What do markets actually value? And what should we value in them?

Questions I couldn’t answer.

But as I was ruminating, Tetsuya posed a question that hit much closer to home.

What happens when the rush for more is no longer there? Once ready-to-drink tea corporations and foreign buyers have enough to meet demand?

“They will stop buying, and I can’t blame them. That is their business,” he stated matter-of-factly. “But we will still be here, because this is our community, our heritage, and we must make sure that it survives.”

It was 7:45. Almost everyone had left. Tens of thousands of kilograms having traded hands.

It brought me back to less than an hour before. A hundred people willingly walking away from one of the biggest sporting moments of the year because work was about to begin.

Most hadn’t chosen the profession so much as inherited it—some stepping into businesses that dated back to the nineteenth century. For them, leaving the match early wasn’t abandoning sport in favor of work, it was exchanging one national pride for another.

To the rest of the world, Japanese tea is becoming a commodity.

For the people inside that room, it’s still a way of life.

Sources

• Original reporting based on direct conversations with tea merchants, buyers, market makers, and industry participants at the Shizuoka Tea Market (静岡茶市場), Shizuoka, Japan. June 2026.

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I stepped off the plane into the standard precision I’d come to expect.

QR codes and facial recognition got me through customs & immigration without speaking to an official. A tap of my credit card carried me onto the world’s most expansive rail network, and less than an hour later I was stepping out into Kagurazaka.

But what was waiting for me outside the station that Thursday evening was just as emblematic. Hammered salarymen, ties undone and shirts unbuttoned, were yelling over one another, shoulder to shoulder inside one of the designated smoking areas I’ve begun referring to as “cig pens.”

Just beyond, a couple was very publicly displaying affection against a wall. A few feet farther, a man sat on the curb, rubbing the backs of two friends doubled over on either side of him, suffering the consequences of the last few hours.

I shook my head, let out a big breath, and smiled.

“Ah Tokyo, how I’ve missed you.”

That love isn’t universal for the world’s largest city. Many encourage people to treat it as no more than a port of entry en route to the rest of the country. And while I don’t think a visit exclusively within its limits is a true trip to Japan, something about it has always spoken to me.

Because what others view as overstimulating contradictions, I see as a society balancing between extremes.

Hyper-efficiency and joyful disorder.

Quiet reverence and neon spectacle.

Ancient ritual and relentless modernity.

Somehow, none of it seems out of place.

In the eight years since my last visit, Japan feels both the same and subtly different, with language playing a huge role. English signage has become commonplace, and people switch to my native tongue before I can even stumble through half a sentence of theirs.

In 2025, Japan welcomed over 42 million foreign visitors, one-third more than 2019’s pre-pandemic high.

Tourists have become so ubiquitous in certain neighborhoods that I’ve become desensitized to it. At times, the ratio of Westerners to Japanese has felt closer to San Francisco’s Japantown than Japan itself.

It feels like the most significant wave of foreign influence since Japan reopened to the world in the nineteenth century.

The comparison isn’t perfect. While foreigners once arrived aboard gunships seeking trade, this time they’ve come on budget airlines, armed with smartphones.

The tea world has evolved alongside the rest of the country. A matcha craze has swept the globe and added another layer to Japan’s international appeal. Now, a tea once reserved for ceremonies is being splashed over alternative milk products from Los Angeles to Lagos.

Japan is producing nearly three times as much tencha (matcha leaf) as it did 10 years ago, and it’s still not enough to meet demand.

But there’s far more to Japanese tea culture than matcha alone. Nearly 70% of tea consumed here is sencha, the traditional steamed green tea that has long defined daily life. And for the everyday person in Japan, more tea comes from a plastic bottle than a teapot.

Last year, foreign visitors spent more than ¥9.5 trillion ($60 billion) here. Economists classify that spending as an export, making tourism Japan’s second-largest export sector after automobiles.

Japan isn’t just exporting its culture anymore; it’s importing the world to experience it.

Tea has spent centuries balancing old and new, ritual and routine, luxury and convenience. If Japan is learning to balance one more contradiction—the world itself—I suspect its favorite drink will tell the story first.

Sources

• Japan’s Heat-Stressed Matcha Tea Output Struggles to Meet Soaring Global Demand. Reuters, July 4, 2025.

• Japan Buckles Under Matcha Mania. Financial Times, October 10, 2025.

• Japan Tourist Arrivals Rise to Record in December Despite China Drop. Reuters, January 20, 2026

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📸 Instagram | 🎥 TikTok | 🎬 YouTube

As you pass through the galleries, palaces, and streets of Seoul, it’s hard not to be captivated by the place. The rush of heavy traffic is softened by the elegance of white-gloved policemen and the effortless sophistication of the people moving through it. But if you sneak down the tight alleys splitting off from major promenades, you end up in a different world. One filled with the jovial shouting of locals helping themselves to heaping portions of barbecue, crackling and steaming from the electric grates at their knees.

Seoul, like much of urbanized East Asia, seems to operate in these dichotomies while somehow making them work. Except this bustling metropolis has something missing.

After a day’s walk past coffee shop after café after Starbucks, I stopped and said aloud: where’s the tea?

I asked around, nobody had a clean answer.

But the numbers are clear. Koreans consume about 3.9 kilograms of coffee per person each year. Tea? Just 0.16 kilograms, roughly 4% of the volume.

It wasn’t a single factor but rather compounding events that led to one of the world’s oldest tea cultures at times feeling disconnected from its own roots. Through my research, conversations, and reflection, there seem to be three main contributors: time, urbanization, and war.

Tea arrived in Korea from the neighboring Tang dynasty during the Silla period in the 7th century. This was roughly the same time as the Ancient Tea Horse Road began between China and Tibet. But where the Tibetans embraced tea for practical reasons related to their diet, Korea’s adaptation was primarily spiritual, in line with the country’s deep Buddhist practice.

So tea grew in popularity throughout the Silla period, before really hitting its golden age during the Goryeo dynasty. But power shifted in 1392, when the Joseon took over. Their Neo-Confucian ideals emphasized education, moral conduct, and social order. That differed from the Buddhist institutions that had played a central role during the Goryeo period.

And while a discrepancy existed, the departure was really a matter of the Joseon consolidating power by reducing the influence of institutions that came before it. As temples lost land, wealth, and influence, tea faded alongside them.

So while that explains why tea wasn’t particularly present in 1640, it doesn’t begin to explain why tea still feels marginalized today.

Tea art as a whole has undergone a massive revival since the 1980s, led by Taiwan and spread throughout Asia. It helped restore centuries of history in just a few decades. So while there is some growth in the Korean tea market, it’s still dwarfed by that of its neighbors.

The first reason is likely the most intuitive. It’s difficult to change habits in a single generation. But after three, few people retain firsthand memories of the old ways. After fifteen? Even the most determined preservation efforts struggle to survive. I suspect that while tea outlasted a 150-year dormancy in China, recovering from Korea’s 500-year decline was more difficult.

Coffee, the beverage that came to dominate Korea, is known for thriving in urban environments (a fact that I plan to explore further in future chapters), while tea has historically done well in both rural and urban places. Both China and Korea were heavily agrarian in the 1950s with between 80% and 90% of each population living rurally. Today, both are predominantly urban. But the pace and timing of that shift tells a more complete story. By the time tea began reviving in the 1980s and early 1990s, Korea was already 75% urban while China was still just 20%.

Korea’s population was primed for a coffee revolution. China, still overwhelmingly rural, followed a different path.

But what is most interesting to me is the third point: war. As I settled into the only real tea shop I happened upon in central Seoul, I got to know the owner, Teo. A Chinese immigrant himself, he had come to Korea to study business and stayed. Eventually I got comfortable enough to ask the question I couldn’t stop thinking about: why did he think Koreans seemed to have such a preference for coffee over tea?

“It all starts with history,” he began. He believes Chinese support of North Korea pushed many South Koreans toward Western, and particularly American, cultural influences and away from what they view as inherited Chinese habits. Even if that inheritance happened 1,500 years ago.

That was the lightbulb moment for me.

While American staples had reached East Asia for generations, the Korean and Vietnam Wars brought unprecedented numbers of Americans into daily contact with those local populations. Some of the habits they brought with them stayed long after they left.

Today, more than 70% of adults in South Korea consume at least one cup of coffee daily. On average, the country consumes 416 cups of coffee per person per year, 3 times the global rate.

Seoul has around 20,000 coffee shops (85 per square mile), serving its 9.5 million residents. That’s more than three times the shop-density of New York City with 28 cafés per square mile, while serving a similar population of 8.5 million. This trend goes beyond the city. There is a coffee shop in South Korea for every 510 people, one of the densest on earth.

Eventually I was led to Insadong, the old tea neighborhood just outside the palace walls. But what I found wasn’t particularly moving. As I hopped from shop to shop, most tea was served in bags and uninspired glass mugs, the kind of afterthought I was used to back home.

Of course tea still exists in South Korea. Boseong still grows it. Tea houses still operate. Tea associations still meet. But compared to China, Japan, or even their Northern counterparts, its visibility in everyday urban life feels remarkably diminished.

Instead, South Korea’s most consumed beverage is one that can’t meaningfully be grown domestically and only became commonplace within a lifetime, while one of its oldest traditions survives largely at the margins of daily life.

Whether that’s progress or loss, evolution or devolution, or simply change is subjective opinion. But it raises a question that’s becoming increasingly relevant all over the world: how did a drink with fifteen centuries of history come to feel less Korean than the one that arrived only a couple generations ago?

Sources

• USDA Foreign Agricultural Service. Coffee and Tea Market Brief: Republic of Korea, 2025.

• International Coffee Organization. Coffee Development Report.

• The World Bank. Urban Population (% of Total Population) – China.

• The World Bank. Urban Population (% of Total Population) – Republic of Korea.

• Kim, Mee-Hyang. The Use and Culture of Tea in Korea. Proceedings of the International Conference on Tea Culture, 2001.

• China Heritage Quarterly. “Feeling Your Way. The Cultivated Aesthetic in Taiwanese Tea Art”

• KOISRA. Rising Coffee Consumption in South Korea.

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📸 Instagram | 🎥 TikTok | 🎬 YouTube

I hadn’t been right for a few days. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but my body was rejecting something I’d done to it, and I couldn’t deny it anymore. I hadn’t let anyone in my traveling party in on the secret, but when I arrived at our next destination I saw some medicine on the table, a freshly brewed batch of Chinese medicinal herbs next to them.

“This will help you,” said the note placed by its side. The benefactor remained anonymous.

For most Americans, China exists more as a geopolitical rival than a nation filled with ordinary people. And even less as one of the world’s oldest and most consequential civilizations.

The Communist Revolution, the Korean War, and modern economic rivalry all helped shape how recent generations of Americans have come to view the country. After 75 years of disagreement, we have largely shut ourselves off from nearly 5,000 years of lived experience and cultural development.

Because what I experienced was not a nation stuck in the past, but rather one that was firmly living in the future, while maintaining a deep respect for its longstanding customs.

Most that make the trip are taken by the extraordinary infrastructural and technological progress China has made. Nearly everything is paid for digitally. Anything you could ever want is at your door in under an hour. The streets are silent with electric vehicles, and you can cross the country on a network that accounts for 75% of the world’s high-speed rail.

I too was struck by the modern. But it was the way it lived alongside traditions that really captured my attention.

In just a short time, I was able to visit with the Dai people of Manzhao Village who have been making rice paper the same way for 800 years. Every yard, street corner, and stall is dedicated to preserving the ancient art form, while incorporating new techniques (like laser engraving) to continue serving the world around them.

Then spending weeks with Blang leaders who have lived harmoniously with nature for more than 2,000 years on Jingmai mountain. Using the tea tree as the foundation of their social, economic, and spiritual worlds. Ensuring that each generation will live sustainably in order to pass what they view as their greatest resource on to the next.

Seeing the potters of Jianshui, whose intricate handmade practice of creating incised reliefs could never be replicated by a machine. The process is so meticulous that many masters have resigned themselves to a nocturnal life in order to retain focus.

To end with the monks of Wuyi, who have overseen tea making since they helped pioneer rock tea during the early Qing dynasty. Their temple, perched high among the cliffs, has promoted peace and mindfulness through nature for centuries.

Yet, it wasn’t just the artists and artisans who cared for craft. Instead, it seemed to extend to the way everyone thought about their possessions. I often saw people on the side of the road tinkering, restoring, and repairing instead of rushing to replace. Understanding that the value of what they possess outweighs anything that could be bought. Because while you can make a clay teapot or cast iron pan in a day, it takes years of use to reach their true potential.

These values extended beyond craftsmanship alone, beginning with community. Where it isn’t theoretical, but embedded into daily life.

Meals were eaten at a round table, a rotating centerpiece showcasing the food. Whether there were two people or twenty-five, it didn’t matter. Each dish was shared, the plates in constant movement to ensure that all were served.

Every time I went to take a sip of my drink, someone would stand up across from me, their hand placed beneath their cup, in a sign of deference and respect. I would meet them in the center, embarrassed at having forgotten once again.

Tea sessions carried the same spirit. All participants had a seat at the table. The host remained constantly aware of everyone’s cups, quietly refilling them while keeping tabs on the leaves to ensure the tea never lost its peak flavor. Merchants were eager to share their finest without any expectation of purchase in exchange.

Hospitality wasn’t a business model, it was a way of life.

Meetings started with the offer of a cigarette, and with almost every departure, a parting gift. Not something generic, but deeply personal: a bit of the tea I liked most, wrapping up the cup I had admired, sending me along with the tea pet that made me laugh.

It’s something I have seen all over the world. Even places that have nothing will insist on giving you everything. Because when you have a depth of pride in what you can provide, where you come from, and what you make, seeing the appreciation of an outsider is the greatest privilege. Creating something and passing it forward provides a fulfillment that no purchase could ever replace.

And it went beyond the people I knew, but to strangers as well.

I spent days in the park, joining a group playing mahjong or Chinese chess. Dropping in on qigong or a learned dance. Happening upon an artisan who was willing to stop their practice to give me a lesson in their craft.

Life is lived in public and everyone is welcome to play a part.

It showed me how conscious the world was around me. In an age that can feel like people are operating on autopilot, self-absorbed, deep in their digital worlds, I felt seen by complete strangers day after day. People who had never met an American took the time to pick up on the nuances of my actions, my demeanor, and my facial expressions. Even though we had no common language, they still found a way to understand who I was.

But over my last few days in Shanghai, it became abundantly clear that these values are at great risk. Because back in the transactional world, placeless luxury had become its own form of commodified culture. Trendy neighborhoods looked the same as those of Brooklyn, London, and Buenos Aires.

Because cultural homogenization is real, and the threats it poses to the heritage it washes over cannot be understated.

There is no replacing an impromptu lesson on the potters wheel, the mesmerizing sight of handspun silk, or the gravity of sharing the same space as a spiritual leader.

For those who cherish the bespoke, the handmade, and genuine human connection — for those who believe globalization should connect communities without eroding them — there is a path forward.

Understanding Chinese culture is a great place to start. Spending your free time in a local park, watching brushstrokes flow across paper, or feeling the steam as it rises out of your teacup.

The values of intention and attention are not a given, but when we bestow them upon one another, we create a world that feels far more human.

Sources

• UNESCO World Heritage Centre — Cultural Landscape of Old Tea Forests of the Jingmai Mountain in Pu’er

• International Energy Agency — Global EV Outlook 2026

• ChinaData — China High-Speed Rail Statistics

• Interviews and firsthand observations collected throughout China, Spring 2026.

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It feels like every Chinese tea market begins the same way.

The gates are ornately decorated, dragons twisting around towering figures painted in pastel colors. It then opens up to cavernous concrete buildings with space for hundreds, if not thousands, of vendors to sell more or less the same three products: tea, teaware, and tea packaging.

And there is one more similarity I would add: they’re empty. Unlike the luxury malls and tourist promenades filled with shoppers, the tea markets I visited were filled with vacant storefronts. Those that remained were stacked to the ceiling with boxes, the owners staring deeply into their phones, a cigarette dangling between their fingers, sipping their own supply.

I was told many of their buyers were elsewhere, or handled through distributors. But it’s in stark contrast to the books I’ve read describing these markets overflowing with customers. Times when nearby banks halved withdrawal limits to prevent a run on cash reserves and pedicabs sold tea to anyone who would listen.

In 2007 Pu’er tea lost between 70-90% of its value. In 2014, 50%. The current freefall has yet to find bottom.

Each time, it felt like a warning of what was to come.

Modern China is not communist in the way many Westerners imagine. In the decades after the 1949 revolution, the country remained poor and economically isolated. Yet, with Mao Zedong’s passing in 1976, Deng Xiaoping became the country’s de-facto leader and he came up with a different approach:

“It doesn’t matter whether a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.”

His logic was simple: a few people had to become wealthy before the masses could prosper.

So in 1978 China opened its doors to the world. At the time, its GDP was less than 10% of the U.S. economy. Within fifty years, it would challenge it for the world’s largest.

Crucially, China’s wealth boom wasn’t just felt at the top, but also across a burgeoning middle class that had disposable income for the first time in its history. In the West, we have a preference for wine, art, cars, and watches as stores of value. The Chinese found these alluring, but they also looked closer to home: Pu’er tea.

Between 1999 and 2007 the price of some Pu’er tea increased 1,000%. Outpacing gold, equities, and nearly every major Chinese asset class. There was a saying at the time:

“It’s better to save Pu’er than to save money.”

They were about to find out why that wasn’t really the case.

Pu’er was naturally positioned for abnormal market behavior. Its ability to improve with age encourages stockpiling and speculation. And because true Pu’er can only be produced in Yunnan, supply was naturally constrained.

Then there are the structural vulnerabilities. It’s extremely difficult to authenticate and pricing is opaque, meaning forgery and manipulation are rampant.

Most of all, luxury markets depend on scarcity. From 2006 to 2007, production doubled from 50,000 to 100,000 tons, while producers from around the country shipped product to Yunnan to be labeled as Pu’er, flooding the market with counterfeit tea.

Once buyers began doubting both scarcity and authenticity, the market unraveled quickly.

The institutions left first. And like other speculative markets, once momentum reverses, the collapse feeds itself.

It was crushing. At least one-third of merchants and manufacturers quit within the first year. Medium-grade Pu’er fell to roughly $3/lb, after its prime counterparts had fetched as much as $150.

Villagers quickly shifted back to farming rice and corn. Some market participants took their own lives. It was a regional collapse that foreshadowed how the Great Financial Crisis would reshape the global economy.

But that crash wasn’t the end of Pu’er. Because out of the rubble, something else emerged: financial tea (金融茶).

Guangzhou’s Fangcun is tea’s hidden Wall Street. Originally, it was China’s largest traditional tea market selling all the tea and teaware you could imagine. In the 2010s, an invisible commodity market began to emerge within it. Investors stopped taking delivery of tea and instead traded receipts, eventually buying lots before they were even finished.

Imagine if 95% of Bordeaux buyers never drank the wine. The cases never left warehouses and owners simply traded the rights to them online.

Fangcun began to resemble the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, but instead of soybeans or wheat, they were trading tea.

But unlike the CME, there is no trading floor in Fangcun. Instead, it grew out of storefronts and WeChat groups. So while the first Pu’er crash was due to a supply/demand imbalance for tea itself, its later valuation barely had anything to do with the product at all.

Suddenly tea wasn’t valuable when it was good, it was valuable when it was liquid.

That’s why the world’s most valuable Pu’er was no longer single-origin tea cakes or prestigious blends from high-value gardens. Instead, it became benchmark teas like Dayi 7542.

Dayi 7542 is a raw Pu’er tea blend from Chinese giant Tae Tea. Its name comes from the year the recipe was developed (1975), leaf grade (4), and factory designation (Menghai is enumerated as 2). It turned an otherwise bespoke product into something standardized and easily tradable.

That standardization made financialization possible. By 2012, financial teas had largely regained their pre-crash values. Within a year, they had surged again, rising between 75% and 250%.

Prices grew because people expected them to. That worked for some period of time, but inevitably, new speculative capital dried up and another crash followed, with up to 50% declines through 2016.

The first crash was rooted in oversupply. The second was rooted in speculation.

In 2007 tea producers broke the market, in 2016, the market broke itself.

But unlike 2007, belief in financial tea never disappeared. Prices stabilized quickly, and by 2019 they went parabolic once again. In normal circumstances this may have led to a quick compression, but like just about everything else during COVID, the price of Pu’er exploded.

By 2021, certain teas like Xuan Yuan Hao (轩辕号) increased 25-fold in four years. Standard packages traded for the price of luxury cars.

Then, the Chinese economy began to slow.

Today, businesses aren’t sending gifts the way they once were. And while the stock market gains, ordinary people don’t feel it at all. I lost count of how many times I heard: “the economy is not good and it hasn’t been for years.” More than once, I walked into a shop where the owners sat in darkness to save on electricity.

The price of some teas has fallen by as much as 80% from their pandemic highs. Corporate showrooms are boarded up. Those that remain have four employees for every customer. While farmers and producers are once again trying to figure out how to sell something that once sold itself.

After an impromptu visit with a tea boss in Jingmai, the laoban led us down to his warehouse, passing two Porsches on the way in. As he opened the door to the dark room, we were dwarfed by the cardboard boxes piled to the ceiling, more than 15 feet high.

He cleared us a path to the back, rummaging past bags of tea that had been there for far too long. He handed us each a kilogram of fresh maocha from the recent spring harvest.

“I have more than I could ever sell. At least this way someone will actually drink it.”

Sources

• A County in China Sees Its Fortunes in Tea Leaves Until a Bubble Bursts — Andrew Jacobs, The New York Times

• How Is Market Reading the Tea Leaves as China’s Puer Bubble Comes Off the Boil? — South China Morning Post

• China’s Pu’er Tea Market Cools as Financial Tea Bubble Deflates — The Epoch Times

• Making “Senses”: The Qualia of Pu’er Tea and Sensorial Encounters Between Tea Producers and Traders in Southwest China — Zhen Ma

• Price Prediction of Pu’er Tea Based on ARIMA and BP Models — Zhi-wu Dou, Ming-xin Ji, Man Wang, Ya-nan Shao

• Predicting Pu-erh Tea Prices Using Machine Learning Techniques — B. Balamurugan, S. Pradeep Kumar & R. Lokesh

• Pu’er Tea in Flux: Intersections of Financialization and Digital Capitalism in China — Yutian Wong

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📸 Instagram | 🎥 TikTok | 🎬 YouTube

The fog came in thick and held on throughout, causing the granite columns cloaked in vines to disappear into the sky above. The drive wound through hairpin turns secured by minuscule barriers, sheer drops waiting beyond them. We sped through every curve, each blind stretch taken more than halfway over the dividing line, hoping for the best.

So how did I end up banking corners at twice the speed limit, scaling this otherworldly landscape? Because tea has a tendency to favor the remote, towering, and serene. This was no exception.

Tea and Buddhism became intertwined during the Tang dynasty (7th–10th centuries), when both tea culture and Chan (or Zen) Buddhism began to spread widely throughout China. Monks initially took to the drink as a form of medicine, before quickly finding it an apt tool for maintaining focus during meditation. Much like coffee would later spread through Sufi devotional culture in the Islamic world, tea became intertwined with Buddhist monastic life.

Tea was a simple ritual requiring mindfulness while promoting harmony with the world around you. The two were a natural fit.

Buddhist temples became more than just spiritual centers where tea was consumed. They became testing grounds for the growth, production, and consumption of the plant itself. They helped shape the tea culture we still associate with today.

One of my main goals for this trip was to experience it firsthand. What better place than Wuyishan, where both black and oolong tea originated among the region’s cliffs and valleys, and whose landscape was later designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its “Red Mountains and Jade Waters.”

The complex at its peak is known as the Tianxin Yongle Zen Temple and traces its roots back to that initial spread of Chan during the Tang dynasty. But this place isn’t just a beneficiary of tea’s history, it’s a foundational part of it.

Tianxin Yongle is widely regarded as the birthplace of Da Hong Pao, or big red robe, the world’s most famous Oolong tea. And it brings the kind of tourism you’d expect along with it.

When we first arrived I got nervous, as flag-totting tour guides led throngs off their buses. Another sacred site, lost to tourism. I cynically resigned myself to it. Thankfully, our first stop was a secluded gazebo where we met Tian Chan.

Tian Chan was a fresh-faced monk somewhere in his late 40’s, but was only ordained in 2022. Before that? He was a banker in Malaysia.

“I came here to volunteer and I had never felt so at peace,” He said, a gentle smile of inner calm swept across his face. “So I came back for good.”

It turns out his story wasn’t unique. There was a mix of career monks and mid-life converts among the ranks. Partly because the qualifications weren’t as strict as I envisioned. No entrance exam, diploma, or rigorous trial period. Instead, “understanding the texts and being prepared to live this lifestyle.”

Vegetarianism, abstinence, and 5 a.m. wakeups included.

My first morning in the temple complex started earlier than usual to attend morning prayer, the day’s most important. I stayed toward the back, following as closely as I could for 30 minutes of standing meditation. Then, the room quickly shifted into another half hour of synchronized walking, chanting, and hand motions around the temple’s main hall. Drums thumped with every beat, incense wafted by, cymbals rang out across the hall. Whether you wanted it or not, the rhythm pulled you in.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the main hall emptied in a matter of seconds. We met Tian Chan outside, without acknowledgement of the sacred ritual we’d just experienced. We ate a communal breakfast, which was followed by a tour of the temple grounds, explaining every chamber, decoration, and deity. He led us through a Qigong session overlooking the mountains, and we met up with a few more monks, including one who spoke fantastic English after spending 12 years in Thailand.

They toured me around their tea plantations, whose finished product can reach 5 figures per kilo. This wasn’t just a coincidence.

Legend has it that a Ming-era scholar fell ill nearby en route to the civil service examinations, by far the most important avenue to social mobility in imperial China. He was found severely ill and was taken into the care of the temple’s monks, who healed him with the tea they’d grown. The young scholar regained his strength and made it to the exam in time to pass.

The newly minted imperial official returned to the mountain and wrapped the tea trees in red silk as a means of protecting them, giving the tea the name it carries to this day.

So the temple doesn’t fund itself through donations, it’s self-sustaining. More than covering their expenses with tea sales from the Da Hong Pao grown and processed in the surrounding grounds.

Eventually, it was time for tea. Our ever-growing crew departed for the living quarters, where the centerpiece was a massive tea table, likely 20-by-5-foot. We started with a variety of teas grown and processed on site. The mood was great, and the tea even better until one moment something changed. The room that had relaxed seemed to tense up a bit. Smiles faded into straight faces just as shoulders perked up. Not out of fear, but of respect for the gravity of that moment.

I knew he was behind me before turning around.

He came in with a quiet confidence, almost gliding across the floor, the bottom of his robe floating effortlessly behind him. Everyone gave a respectful bow, hands pressed together. Multiple seats were offered and he settled into the one opposite my own on the host’s side of the table.

This was the Shifu, abbot of one of China’s most historically important tea temples. His attendance that day was rumored but never confirmed. His name was never revealed, we were not allowed to share any photographs. But none of that was necessary to understand the weight of his presence.

He began asking me a few questions in Chinese to which my translator stepped in and answered on my behalf.

“America?” He took a beat, his facial expression noticeably changing as he stared into my eyes.

Uh-oh.

After a moment, he continued. I waited anxiously, the last person in the room to be clued in. “You know we call this tea Da Hong Pao. Maybe this would be a good one for you to bring back home because you all seem to look so beautiful.”

I laughed on the outside, but on the inside it was a sigh of relief.

After an hour or so, he beckoned me to the other side of the table. It was my turn to prepare tea. It felt as though I had been asked to lead grace at a monastery on no notice. He watched intently as I tried to put all of my skills up until that point to use.

Pour the water off to the side of the tea, immediately replace the lid. Thumb and middle finger on either side of the rim, index finger over the lid, leaving a couple millimeters of space between the two. Elbow tucked, wrist flicked confidently, but without too much panache.

A slow tilting of the gaiwan over the gong dao bei.

As the tea gently flowed from bowl to cup, I could sense a collective exhale from my traveling party. The Shifu nodded in approval, and my teacher did the same.

After that, the rhythm came naturally. Before I knew it, one of the monks was slipping off his outer robe and placing it over my shoulders. As I returned to the host’s chair, the Shifu began discussing my month-long residency, which he then extended to 3 and finally 6 months.

Surrounded by genuine love, awe-inspiring nature, and deep introspection, it was hard to say no. Quite honestly, it felt like it actually might be the best thing for me. I can be a vegetarian for 6 months and 5 a.m. isn’t too early if I just get to bed on time. Romantic relationships would be harder to talk around, but I can get to that one later.

My short period of entertaining the idea came to an abrupt end as almost all departures seem to happen in China. The Shifu departed as unceremoniously as he had arrived. A few seconds later he was out of sight.

I was left to wander through the vast corridors on my own and I reflected back on an anecdote earlier in the conversation.

“People come to the temple looking for answers” he said, almost bemoaning it. “And a monk’s response is always the same: go and drink tea, go and drink tea.”

When I first heard it, I was a bit disappointed. Part of me had been hoping for some kind of revelation. Some tea-prayer wisdom that could help unlock the secrets I set out to find.

But maybe that’s not how Buddhism – or life – works. The monks weren’t holding back on their advice out of selfishness. They do so because they believe the answers are already within you. To them, tea is the vessel to uncover them.

In the days since my visit, I’ve looked at tea a little differently. I’m less focused on consuming as much information as I can: age, steep time, leaf quality, and more on the act itself. All previously in service of gaining the knowledge and authority I feel is required to speak on the topic.

Instead, I have tried to take a different approach.

To drown out the noise. Allowing every drop to trickle out. Every hand movement to sit with intention. And to carry a piece of their teaching with me for the rest of my life.

Sources

• UNESCO World Heritage Centre — Mount Wuyi

• Britannica — Wuyi Mountains

• Teasenz — The Legend of Da Hong Pao Tea

• Serious Eats — The Ancient Chinese Ritual Behind a Favorite Green Drink

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Tea powered China’s army.

Just not in the way you’d think.

By the Tang dynasty, China faced mounting pressure from nomadic cavalry powers.

But they couldn’t produce horses in the quantities their military needed, so they built a system to acquire them: tea into Tibet, horses back to China. The terrain in between was among the most treacherous on Earth, requiring months of sustained endurance to complete. But the strategic value justified the danger.

This would come to be known as the Ancient Tea Horse Road.

According to legend, Princess Wencheng of the Tang dynasty married into the Tibetan royal family in 641 AD. She brought with her some of the empire’s precious tea as part of her dowry and the Tibetan court embraced it.

Tibet is a high alpine environment, with little arable land forcing a diet heavily reliant upon meat, dairy, and animal fats. It was notoriously difficult to digest and tea helped offset the strain.

Its value was obvious, but it mostly remained among the royal and aristocratic classes during the Tang dynasty.

The Song faced greater pressure than their predecessors. The Liao, Western Xia, Jin, and other frontier foes tested their strength. That led to the creation of Tea Horse Agencies (茶马司), designed to regulate tea monopolies and institutionalize tea-horse trade.

This was welcomed by wider Tibetan society, which directly benefited from the introduction of more tea into their diet and lifestyle. It became a part of daily life, often combined with fermented yak’s milk as a calorie-rich staple. This evolved into an interdependence, with some historical accounts describing consumption exceeding a dozen cups daily.

As trade increased, an entire economy developed around it, including the standardization of production methods, weights and measures, pricing, and transportation routes. Tea was compressed into bricks and then loaded onto caravans for transport. They weren’t just creating an agricultural product, but a transregional commodity.

The Song saw something even larger taking shape: an opportunity to build not only a controlled trade network, but one that could finance the empire.

They went to work building one of the most sophisticated commodity-control systems in pre-modern China.

Farmers had annual production quotas and government sales requirements. Merchants needed licenses, permits, certificates, and state authorization. And the consumers supplemented all of it by paying inflated prices for their goods.

The Song intensified demand and expanded trade for a resource they desperately needed. Then monopolized production and monetized every layer of the network. It was the kind of statecraft that sustained empires for centuries.

For those on the ground though, things weren’t so simple.

The route spanned tropical jungle, steep hillsides, and Himalayan mountain passes at elevations in excess of 15,000 feet, making it one of the harshest sustained trade routes in human history.

Journeys along the main line from southern Yunnan to Lhasa in Tibet lasted 4–6 months, at a pace of 15–25 km (9–15 mi) per day.

Men carried bags of tea bricks, food, and other goods in baskets that they balanced on bamboo frames and slung over their shoulders. Porters routinely carried loads of 60–90 kg (130–200 lb). Mules, horses, and even yaks would carry roughly the same.

A small caravan might consist of 10–20 animals, a few porters, and some local guides. Larger ones could include religious leaders, extra handlers, and even security to ensure safe passage.

Mule bells, prayer chants, and creaking wooden frames dominated the soundscape, set against towering cliffs, endless ice, and dense jungle.

It was common for caravans to be lost without notice, merely slipping off a hillside into the abyss. The losses were built into the economic model, but the human toll was not.

It should not come as a surprise then to learn that those who sustained the system weren’t the ruling class, but mostly smaller ethnic groups on the empire’s southwestern frontier.

Minority communities such as Tangut, Dai, Tibetan, and Blang were central from cultivation to transport and trade.

This increased the strategic importance of the region. With each tea brick they made, they were essentially printing money.

And while tea was responsible for the journey, over time, the journey began to influence the tea.

Tea is a living product that changes with its surroundings: it soaks up smells, slowly ferments, and loses tea polyphenols and caffeine with age.

The tea that showed up in Tibet and Beijing wasn’t the same tea that left Yunnan. So the tea makers had to adapt.

Over time they started to make tea that didn’t just survive the journey, but thrived because of it. Modern Pu’er builds on the fermentation process that was once incidental, where cakes are stored for years in aging warehouses, inextricably linking product with passage.

Today the Ancient Tea Horse Road is a distant memory. It faded slowly during the 20th century with the advancement of mechanized transport and industrialized warfare. Cities were built upon some of its most important trade posts, but most of the rugged overland route has been returned to nature.

After nearly 1,200 years of activity, history has largely folded it into the extended Silk Road network and awareness has dwindled outside the regions it once connected. But its legacy shaped the geopolitical landscape, helping create lasting economic and political interdependence between neighboring powers and successive Chinese dynasties.

Most of all, it represents one of history’s clearest examples of a single commodity shaping an entire regional economy. That model still exists today; just look at the petro-states in Latin America and the Middle East. Imagine entire regions being almost entirely reliant on a few bottlenecks, with empires relying on their stability.

The Himalayan steppe of old is the Strait of Hormuz today. Because while the subject matter may change, the dynamics that drive conflict do not.

Sources

• National Geographic — The Forgotten Road of Tea and Horses

• Silk Road Foundation — The Ancient Tea and Horse Caravan Road

• American University Silk Road Journal — The “Ancient Tea and Horse Caravan Road”: The “Silk Road” of Southwest China

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China is a country of more than 1.4 billion people. Over 90% of them trace their roots back to the Han ethnic group. In most of the country, that breeds cohesion: overlaps in food, language, culture, and value systems.

And then, there’s Yunnan.

If Han-dominant Confucian culture is the rule, Yunnan is the exception.

Around one-third of the province is made up of ethnic minorities, and 26 of China’s 56 recognized groups have a foothold here. Its geography reflects that same break. The province runs from Himalayan peaks towering over 6,000 meters high (nearly 20,000 feet) to tropical rainforest along the borders of Laos and Myanmar.

And it’s here, almost improbably, that tea survived.

Tea trees are believed to have spanned much of the globe in the Tertiary period, but an ice age around 2 million years ago nearly wiped them out entirely. Along the Lancang River, a combination of climate, elevation, and biodiversity provided refuge for the resilient plant that would come to be known as Camellia sinensis.

Jingmai Mountain is the heartbeat of this zone. So I spent two weeks between its many villages, coming to appreciate how each has its distinct character and history.

Life here revolves around tea. Jingmai has the world’s largest ancient tea forest at over 1,000 hectares. But unlike the aesthetically lined tea bushes in India, Japan, or Taiwan, these trees were planted almost at random, in a biodynamic forest, or one that includes a variety of plant species.

It’s objectively less productive than their perfectly manicured counterparts, but locals claim the leaves they bear are richer. In fact, they attempted to plant trees en masse in the 1980s, but the experiment failed. Without biodynamism and room to grow, the trees just didn’t produce the same quality tea. They went back to the wild forests.

As you make your way along the winding roads that shift between dirt and cobblestone, you’re immediately drawn to the roof ornamentation. Jingmai traces its origins back to two ethnic groups, the Dai and Blang (pronounced dye and boo-long). Each has its own architecture, creating visual distinctions from the moment you arrive.

We were welcomed into the homes, dining rooms, and holiday celebrations of each group at their most important time of year. Sharing food, dance, and baijiu—experiences beyond anything I could have imagined.

But of all of the experiences I had, one stands out.

Mr. Su Guowen is the 42nd generational leader of the Blang people on Jingmai Mountain, where they have lived peacefully since the early Han dynasty.

We joined him alone for tea a week before the Blang New Year and again throughout the festivities.

To understand its importance, you have to see what they give up to observe it. The tea industry, the economy’s driving force, relies on a prime plucking and processing window in a six-week period between late March and early May. Yet for this three-day festival, it shuts down entirely.

In its place are prayer, speech, dance, and chanting, interrupted only by spontaneous water fights that give the holiday its name: the Water Splashing Festival.

When you leave the drum circles for the quiet of the temples, you feel a duality—where Buddhist deities are intertwined with something even older.

That’s because the Blang follow two religions simultaneously: animism, as their ancestors did, and Theravada Buddhism. The latter arrived with the Dai around 1,700 years ago.

In one of the main temples, seven giant figures line the back wall, three on each side of a central diety. The surrounding six represent the spirits of land, insects, trees, water, animals, and tea.

The main figure is an amalgamation of the ancestors. He sits upright but not tense. In his right hand, he grips the trunk of an ancient tea tree, a young sapling rests gently in the palm of his left.

These ancestors are represented in each “tea spirit tree,” the first tree planted in every Blang garden. Many that still stand today are over 1,000 years old. Only the ancestral leader is allowed to pick leaves from them. Mr. Su shared some tea from one that day. I was able to take a cake home—one of his many ways of carrying the tradition forward in a form that can survive.

It was his work, and that of so many around him, that made UNESCO take notice. The organization designated Jingmai Mountain as a World Heritage Site in 2023.

Long overdue.

It is the first (and remains the only) World Heritage Site dedicated to tea, lagging well behind wine (Rhine Valley (1979), Saint-Émilion (1999)) and coffee (Southeast Cuba (2000), Colombia (2011)), among others.

But the initial sugar rush of money and attention may be short-sighted.

No country has seen as much change as China in the 21st century. As you peek down alleyways and stroll past the homes off the main street, you’re afforded brief glimpses into a world that goes back 2,000 years.

You can see the faces of the elders, still dressed in their traditional garb, speaking exclusively their native tongue, who remember when there were no outsiders, and really, no government intervention here. Locals say that most visitors aren’t here for the tea, but rather the views, the prestige of visiting a World Heritage Site, and, of course, the perfect selfie.

Today, the road is a treacherous three hours from the nearest airport, in a few months a new super-highway will cut that to under 60 minutes. What exactly Jingmai will look like in a few years, let alone a few decades, is an open question.

On our final visit, Mr. Su showed us two large horses that flank each side of the main doors to his home. The first belonged to his father, the other to his grandfather. Each a gift from a Qing dynasty emperor, alongside a sword, in recognition of their authority to rule over this area. Mr. Su doesn’t have a horse, the tradition was abandoned with the rise of the PRC.

A testament to the history of his lineage and how quickly it can be taken away.

As we prepared to leave, Mr. Su offered a proverb that is widely shared among the Blang people:

Our ancestors did not leave us gold or silver,

for they feared we would waste it.

Instead, they left us tea trees,

so that, generation after generation,

we would always have something to depend on.

That belief remains true even as the way it manifests begins to change.

Sources

• For All the Tea in China: How England Stole the World’s Favorite Drink and Changed History — Sarah Rose

• UNESCO World Heritage Centre — Jingmai Mountain Ancient Tea Forest Cultural Landscape (2023)

• Tea: History, Terroirs, Varieties — Kevin Gascoyne et al.

• Encyclopaedia Britannica — Tea (Camellia sinensis, origin and history)

• National Bureau of Statistics of China — Ethnic Composition of China

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Before this journey really begins, we need to start with the basics. U.S. tea consumption is higher than you might think (on any given day, more than 50% of the population drinks some), but when it comes from Lipton or Arizona it’s easy to miss the bigger picture. That’s like learning about wine by drinking Franzia after 30 seconds in the microwave.

Part of the confusion stems from the word itself. In English, tea is a polysemy, or a word with multiple distinct but related meanings. Those meanings form a chain, from crop to cup and beyond:

1. A plant (Camellia sinensis)

2. Leaves (dried, before brewing)

3. A drink (after steeping)

4. A ritual (Gongfu tea)

5. A social event (afternoon tea)

6. Broader infusions (chamomile, rooibos, mate)

7. Social exchange (“give me the tea”)

This is the root of one of tea’s greatest misconceptions: at what point on that chain is something no longer tea? If you ask an American what their favorite tea is, often they’ll answer chamomile, jasmine, or peppermint. Except, those aren’t actually tea, at least not in the stricter sense defined above. Instead, those are tisanes, or herbal infusions, that the Western lexicon has lumped in with tea itself.

That leads us to misconception number two: that tea comes from many different plants—when in reality, it all comes from one. Yes, you read that correctly. From earl grey to oolong to matcha to whatever’s in that Arizona can, all tea comes from the same tree. It’s processing that turns it into the drink we know and love.

So how is tea processed? The answer is also how it’s differentiated. If you boil it down to one factor, it’s oxidation: an enzyme-driven reaction with oxygen that only occurs while the leaves retain sufficient moisture, typically expressed on a scale from 0 to 100 percent.

Think about the last time you sliced up an apple. Right after slicing it, the golden-white flesh is perfect, unblemished. Leave it out for a few hours, and that flesh would start turning brown. But with a dried apple? There would be no visible difference.

That’s oxidation at work and the same thing happens to tea, creating the difference between lighter teas like green and white, and darker teas like oolong and black.

The second major difference is fermentation: the microbial transformation behind things like beer and kimchi, applied to tea. This is most common in dark teas, though producers are now experimenting with other bases.

Oxidation and fermentation are often conflated—but the distinction drives major changes in composition, aging, flavor, and price. As good as a fresh spring tea may be, few things carry the economic mystique of an agricultural product aged for decades.

Once tea falls into one of six basic categories, it can be impacted further, or “reprocessed,” through additional fermentation, scenting, flavoring, or grinding. It can change form entirely, or barely at all. Just look at Burmese tea leaf salad. Once the leaves are brewed? There’s room for those too. See: tea leaf eggs.

But underneath all of it, what seems like a simple leaf is actually a complex chemical system that has been shaped by society for thousands of years to meet its needs. One that continues to evolve into the modern day.

After all of that, we’re back to the original question: what is tea? It’s somewhat in the eye of the beholder, and to reduce it after everything it has become would be a disservice to the craft. For this project, we can think of it as a plant that grew into something larger than itself. One that evolved alongside humanity, not apart from it.

But the answer to why tea matters isn’t hidden in the nuances above. If you rely solely on chemistry, you’re only seeing part of the picture.

Because none of this is how tea is actually experienced.

A few nights ago, we were hosted by Mr. Shaohong Zheng, the da lao ban, or “big boss,” who founded Sui Yue Zhi Wei Tea Company. He is among those credited with helping re-popularize Yiwu, one of the original regions associated with so-called “tribute teas,” or teas prepared for China’s emperors.

He pulled out a 1986 sheng Pu’er from his personal collection. It had started aging in Hong Kong just 3 years after my mom attended high school there, while it was still under British control. If only tea could talk…

After a lively conversation about the nuances of terroir and blending strategies, I asked Mr. Zheng how he would suggest introducing higher end teas to my own community back home, where a gaiwan isn’t something you’d expect to find in your hotel room.

He started tactically.

“Introduce them to the 5 major elements of tea tasting: aroma, sweetness, umami, bitterness, and astringency.”

It was a useful framework, and one we will lean on. But as I jotted down notes and began to prepare my next question, he kept going.

“Once they begin to drink you must teach them to feel the tea’s impact on their body. Then they can appreciate it.”

Interesting. I quickly wrote that down.

But he wasn’t finished.

“Finally, they must feel how tea impacts their spirit. Only then can they truly understand it.”

That is the real question of this journey: not just what tea is, but what it does to the people who drink it.

Sources

• For All the Tea in China: How England Stole the World’s Favorite Drink and Changed History — Sarah Rose

• Tea Sommelier Coursework — International Academy of Chinese Tea

• Tea Processing Explained in Full — Wu Mountain Tea

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqDk2swTiB8

• The Story of Tea — Mary Lou Heiss, Robert J. Heiss

• Tea Fact Sheet — Tea Association of the USA
  https://www.teausa.org/tea-fact-sheet

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📸 Instagram | 🎥 TikTok | 🎬 YouTube

Culture is disappearing

Not all at once, but quietly, piece by piece. We’ve been taught to believe that when faced with such problems, we inevitably land on the right solutions.

I don’t buy it.

We all feel more divided than ever, yet advancements have enabled the study of our fragmented history as a unified one. It’s time we look toward the past.

The more I read, the more I saw trends in how all societies evolved. We found similar ways to build and grow our influence, even without contact, suggesting those patterns weren’t accidental. My thesis is that we can understand what matters by studying what endured. Yet, the analog artforms that got us here are now endangered. Awareness is the first step, helping us balance preservation and progress.

I’m launching Lost in Space Media to experience culture through craft, bringing you along with me.

Eventually, I hope to follow the global development of textiles, ceramics, fermentation, paper, and metalsmithing, but I’ve decided to start with the plant that changed the world like no other, Camellia sinensis, more commonly known as the tea tree.

The Tea Trail

The history of this shrub from the mountains of Southwest China is a lengthy one, and shockingly misunderstood. There are plenty of legends, tales, and debates over its true origins, but what’s undeniable is its influence: from territorial disputes, geopolitics, and global commerce, to the way it has anchored daily life for billions.

Much of this has been left out of the American understanding. This is relatively unsurprising; our most popular story about tea was when a group of anti-colonial independence seekers dumped 46 tons of it into the Boston Harbor.

Our tea consumption reflects it. As opposed to its use as medicine, stimulant, or ceremonial tool as it is in the majority of the world, Americans drink 80% of their tea black, 85% iced, and more than 50% using added sugars or sweeteners. In the West, tea is often treated as fuel or convenience; elsewhere, it remains ritual, hospitality, and attention.

In order to understand a more complete picture, I am embarking on a 6-month journey to meet the plant at its roots. There are regions, production styles, and trade routes made famous over centuries, and we will study them over the course of this project, but unlike silk and spice, there is no singular ‘tea trail’ that the commodity once followed.

This trip is in part an attempt to weave together a scattered history and find parallels we don’t realize are there. After all, it’s difficult to argue such grave differences in people across the globe when nearly all of us sit down to chat over a cup of tea. Starting in the Jingmai mountains of Yunnan, China, and ending in the Rift Valley of Kenya, this trip will trace 5,000 years of tea history.

Through a combination of short-form video on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube and long-format writing here on Substack, I’ll sit down with the farmers, blenders, merchants, historians, and everyday people from the places where the plant sprang up and continues to thrive today. We will learn about colonization and global trade. And most of all, I’ll drink a whole lot of tea.

Author’s note

For those that are new to my work, I hope to properly set expectations. While I’m a seasoned traveller, I do not have a background in anthropology or ethnography. This is not an academic paper furthering research on ancient traditions. Lost in Space Media is structured as long-format journalism, full of immersion into crafts, artisans, and communities that are threatened. But as a sucker for the details, I will aim to link source material or list primary sources at the end of each post when possible.

Some of you may be asking yourselves (and others just asking me straight away) why I would leave my career behind to embark on such a diversion. The reality is I don’t know anything for sure. But for me, it’s about reconciling a systematic failure to learn from the experiences of those that came before us. In recognizing that, I hope to be a small part of reversing the trend, looking back, listening first and acting second.

This is The Tea Trail.

Sources

• Tea Fact Sheet — Tea Association of the USA
  https://www.teausa.org/tea-fact-sheet

• Tea and Health — National Institutes of Health (NCBI Bookshelf)
  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK589770

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