The first country to be influenced by the Chinese tea culture was Japan. The Buddhist monks who traveled to China to learn Buddhism on their return brought some tea seeds and tea bushes and started growing tea around the Buddhist monasteries. For the Japanese, tea is more than just a drink. The
tea ceremony, whose aim is to help the spirit find peace, has effectively straddled centuries and borders. Japan consumes most of its green teas and hence good Japanese green teas are difficult to obtain outside the country.