You may have tried green tea or matcha at Japanese café or somewhere else. Yes, it is the vivid green color tea with creamy forms on the surface. It is bitter and contains caffeine, a bit stronger than black tea. In order to enjoy matcha, put matcha powder, which is crushed green tea leaves, in tea bowl and pour hot water (approximately 85℃) in it. Then stir it quickly by using special bamboo-made whisk until smooth form covers the surface of the bowl.

Green tea was brought from China by Buddhist monks around 8^th century. It was taken only among aristocracies and was regarded as medicine. It is said drinking match spread widely by late 12^th century with the spread of Buddhism

bunraku; puppet play

As written in the previous post, Japan kept national isolation policy for more than 250 years. It refrained from developing the democracy and helped to keep feudal system with strict social classes. On the other hand, the long period without large wars helped make the society stable and increase the national population from approximately 12million to 30million during that period.

During Edo period, Japan developed many unique crafts and culture which are now regarded as “traditional”. Art pieces such as ukiyoe (woodblock prints), chrysanthemum doll, variety of potteries and art performances such as kabuki (a traditional stage drama performed exclusively by men with songs and music), bunraku (a classical puppet play performed with narrative ballads) and

During the Edo period, Japan closed its country border and did not trade with foreign nations except for China, Korea and the Netherlands. All ships from overseas had to stay in Nagasaki and all non-Japanese had to live in a small island dedicated to only foreigners. Japanese were banned from visiting foreign countries and local feudal lords were not allowed to build ships. Only boats were allowed to be made for domestic transportation.

In the 16^th century, Spanish and Portuguese ships with Catholic priests were sent to Japan to spread Christianity. Some local warriors allowed the spread of Christianity because the trading with western countries accompanied with Christianity brought them a lot of profit. However, rulers gradually began to realize that the

As mentioned in the previous post, people were living separately based on their social class. Many of the traditional old towns that we can visit today date back to Edo period and each has different character based on which class of people were living.

Hagi in Yamaguchi prefecture, Kakunodate in Akita prefecture, and Tsuwano in Shimane are famous as old samurai towns and well reserve atmosphere of at that time. Those are the town where middle to high class samurai were living.

Kawagoe in Saitama prefecture and Sawara in Chiba prefecture are relatively close from Tokyo and were developed as towns of merchants. Murakami in Niigata prefecture still keeps