Nagatani-San, the founder of Sencha, who was elevated to kami/diety status, the official tea god of Uji- discovered a way to make quality Sencha in the 1700s, and the landscape of Japanese tea was changed forever. It took him 15 years to figure out how to remove the bitterness from the tea leaves by studying how the farmers remove the bitterness from the persimmons when they are making hoshigaki. Carefully rolling the leaves in heated troughs into needle shapes, it would take 5-6 hours to make 500 gms. And it would sell for what is today, 70,000 yen per 100gms- or $600 for ¼ lb! Only the richest merchants can afford the leaves, and after they finish drinking the tea, the second tier merchants would dry the leaves and then drink them again. And then….. The poor samurai class would get to drink the leftovers after that.
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