Illustration Friday 24: Tea

Illustration Friday 24: Tea, originally uploaded by pantufla.

A Japanese myth about the meditative Buddhist monk, Bodhidharma, describes how he cut off and threw his drooping eyelids to the ground in frustration at his inability to say awake. Tea bushes sprang up where the eyelids fell. The leaves of these new bushes miraculously cured his fatigue.

Tea is not native to Japan, so this myth does at least provide an explanation for its sudden appearance on the islands. The reality is less colourful: early in the ninth century, a far-sighted Japanese monk called Dengyo Daishi brought tea seeds back with him from China.