Tea in the History of Japan's Global Interfaces

Hellyer uses the case of tea to illuminate Japan&s;s long global entanglements. Beginning with its eighth-century transmission from China, he tracks how practices like matcha and sencha emerged through technological borrowings and shifting domestic tastes, while Edo-period trade tied Japan into Chinese-centred circuits of silver, copper, and medicinal goods. With the treaty ports from 1859, Japan entered the American-dominated green tea market, even outcompeting China by the late nineteenth century. When US consumers turned to Indian and Ceylonese black teas in the 1920s, Japanese producers redirected surplus sencha inward, promoting it as a healthful national drink. Hellyer argues that iconic elements of Japanese culture—today epitomized by sencha and matcha—were shaped not by isolation but by sustained links with China and evolving demands of Western markets.