We had the joy of sharing the senchadō (leaf tea ceremony) with you alongside Master Okada: Saturday September 19 at the Maison de la culture du Japon, then Tuesday September 22, during a ceremony in a Tsukimi setting (festival of contemplation of the autumn moon), accompanied for the first time by a cha-kaiseki (light and seasonal meal). Many of you have asked us where this practice of tea comes from, freer and more convivial than the ceremony of matcha : the senchado. To answer it, we have to go back in time and tell you about a rather special former monk: Baisaō.
A tea from China, initially reserved for a few
Before discussing Baisaō we must contextualize the origin of Japanese tea, as well as the place it occupied in Japanese society. Tea arrived in Japan at the beginning of the 9th century with monks who went to study in China. In 815, chronicles report that the monk Eichū served it to Emperor Saga. It is then a compressed tea in bricks (Dancha), which is grated then boiled. A rare drink, it remained the business of the court and the great temples.
At the end of the 12th century, the monk Eisai brought back tea plant seeds from China and a new method: tea reduced to powder and whipped, the ancestor of our matcha. In his treatise Kissa yōjōki, “Drink tea to take care of your life”, he presents it as a remedy capable of strengthening the body and prolonging existence. It is even said that he offered some to the shōgun (military leader who governed the country in the name of the emperor) Minamoto no Sanetomo to relieve the day after a party that was a little too drunk. In Zen monasteries (branch of Buddhism focused on meditation), tea helps monks stay awake during meditation.
The matcha, a path of warriors and lords
In the 14th and 15th centuries, tea reached the warrior elite. The samurai organize tasting competitions where people guess the origin of teas, often by betting, and surround themselves with precious objects from China.
Then come Murata Jukō, Takeno Jōō and especially Sen no Rikyū, who make tea a discipline of sobriety and presence: wabi-cha (“tea of simplicity”, which finds beauty in simplicity). Paradoxically, this aesthetic also becomes an instrument of power. Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the lords who then unified Japan, received their allies around a bowl of tea, and famous utensils were exchanged like treasures.
In the Edo period (1603-1868), the ceremony of matcha freezes into hereditary schools, directed by a grand master. It becomes the official culture of the warrior class, with its rules, its diplomas and its expensive objects. The people mainly drink bancha (everyday tea, made from coarser leaves).
Baisaō, the monk who chooses to be a simple man
It is in this context that our character appears. Born in 1675 in Hizen Province, now Saga Prefecture, he entered a temple of the Ōbaku Zen school as a child under the religious name of Gekkai Genshō. This school, founded in Japan by the Chinese monk Ingen, brought the customs of China from the Ming (dynasty which reigned over China from 1368 to 1644), including a new way of drinking tea: no longer in whipped powder, but in leaves infused in a small teapot.
Over many years of training, he became an accomplished and respected monk, to whom a prominent place in the religious hierarchy seemed promised. But he observed with a critical eye the clergy of his time, too often rich and dependent on the favors of the powerful. Around 1735, at the age of sixty, he made an astonishing choice: to leave his rank behind to follow his own path, and earn his living through modest work. Sell tea.
He opened a small shop in Kyoto, near the Kamo River, then hit the road. His utensils stored in baskets hanging from a pole, he installs his brazier where the season is most beautiful: under the maple trees of Tōfuku-ji (large Zen temple in Kyoto), under the cherry trees, at the water's edge. The inhabitants of Kyoto nicknamed him Baisaō, “the old man who sells tea”. He willingly adopts this name, which says everything about his choice: he is no longer a dignitary, simply a man who serves tea.
It does not set any prices. Everyone slips what they want into a bamboo tube, and you can even drink for free. Around him are passers-by, monks, poets and painters. No assigned place according to rank, no imposed gestures: tea becomes an opportunity for free conversation, often focused on poetry and Zen.
Around 1742, he definitively renounced the monastic state and took the lay name of Kō Yūgai. He continued to serve tea for another ten years.
Fire rather than vanity
In 1755, at the age of eighty, feeling his age approaching, Baisaō decided to close his shop. He then performed a gesture that left its mark: he himself burned his tea utensils, those which had accompanied him for so many years on the roads of Kyoto. In a short text written for the occasion, he bids them farewell.
After his death, these objects could have ended up in the hands of people who did not understand their spirit, exhibited as relics or resold at a high price. But this is precisely what he reproached the world of matcha of his time, when famous utensils were collected for their value and prestige more than for the tea itself. Rather than seeing them become objects of vanity, he prefers to return them to the fire.
This gesture sums up his whole path: tea is not about the richness of the objects, but about the meeting and the shared moment. Only a few utensils, previously given to friends, have been preserved. Baisaō died in 1763, at the age of 88. Shortly before his death, his friends published his poems, Stanzas of the Old Tea Merchant.
A tea party for scholars and artists
Thanks to Baisaō, loose leaf tea became the drink of Kyoto's literati, those cultivated minds who painted, calligraphed and composed poems among friends. At the same time, in 1738, Nagatani Sōen developed the process of sencha modern: steamed, rolled and dried leaves, which give a green and fragrant infusion. Between the matcha expensive and the everyday bancha, a new tea is born.
Itō Jakuchū, the painter who also followed his path
Among Baisaō's friends was one of Japan's greatest painters: Itō Jakuchū (1716-1800). The eldest son of a vegetable wholesaler from the Nishiki market in Kyoto, he inherited the family business at a very young age. But his passion lies elsewhere. In 1755, at the age of forty, he entrusted the business to his brother to devote himself entirely to painting. We can think that the example of Baisaō, who himself had left everything to live according to his convictions, counted in this decision.
His artist name would also be linked to tea. Master Okada told us that the characters “Jakuchū” (若冲) were written on the mizusashi (fresh water container) of Baisaō. They come from a phrase from Laozi (Chinese sage, founder of Taoism): “the great fullness seems empty, but its use is inexhaustible”, a wealth which is not displayed. This name would have been given to him by their mutual friend, the poet monk Daiten, biographer of Baisaō. We like to imagine that the idea was born around a cup of tea, between these three friends: exactly the kind of free meeting that Baisaō wanted to offer.
Jakuchū painted several portraits of the old man (including the one in the miniature in this article), his tea baskets on his shoulder. In return, Baisaō paid homage to him with a calligraphy whose meaning can be translated as follows: “the skill of this living brush reaches the divine”.
Famous during his lifetime for his roosters, flowers and animals of dazzling precision, Jakuchū notably painted a large series of thirty scrolls, the Dōshoku sai-e, “The colorful world of living beings”, which he offered to the Shōkoku-ji temple in Kyoto. In 1889, the temple donated it to the imperial family, and the series was designated a National Treasure in 2021. Once somewhat forgotten, Jakuchū is today among the most admired Japanese painters, both in Japan and abroad.
A living heritage
After Baisaō, others maintain his spirit: the writer Ueda Akinari, author of Tales of Rain and Moon, defends the sencha in his writings, and the potter Aoki Mokubei shapes teapots and braziers for this practice. In the 19th century, the sencha is in turn organized into schools: it is the senchadō that we practice today. At Manpuku-ji (main temple of the Ōbaku school) in Uji, a pavilion still honors the memory of Baisaō.
A cup, a meeting
When Master Okada pours the sencha in small cups, it is a bit of this heritage that is transmitted: the attention paid to the leaf, to the season, and above all the pleasure of a simple meeting around tea.
If you were unable to join us this time, the senchadō ceremony will be back at the end of May 2027. Until then, we invite you to find this spirit at home, with a sencha quietly brewed and shared with those you love.
We thank you for reading.