Strictly speaking, while tea may go back thousands of years, methods of preparation have varied drastically. For example, in _The Classic of Tea_, detailed inst

Strictly speaking, while tea may go back thousands of years, methods of preparation have varied drastically. For example, in _The Classic of Tea_, detailed instructions are given on how best to toast your tea brick over a fire before steeping it. I don't know about you, but I have never seen nor heard of anyone in the West or China or Japan toasting their tea in the past few centuries (even tea bricks are hardly seen anymore these days). And I'm not sure matcha existed more recently than the 1000s CE when predecessors were brought over from China.