Is shade grown tea older than I thought?

Last week, while reviewing the matcha I had, I posted some internet sources that claim shade-growing dated to the early 19th c.

While watching the "Matcha" episode on "Trails to Oishii Tokyo" on NHK, featuring a visit to a tea grower in Uji, the program stated it dated to the 16th c. Clearly more research was indicated!

The following is from Joao Rodrigues's Account of Sixteenth-Century Japan, translated and edited by Michael Cooper for the Hakluyt Society, 2001, pages 272-273 in a chapter which describes tea production and compares the Chinese and Japanese methods of entertaining with cha.

"Its new leaves, which are used in the drink, are extremely soft, tender and delicate, and frost may easily make them wither away. So much damage can be done in this way that in the town of Uji, where the best tea is produced, all the plantations and fields in which this cha is grown are covered over with awnings or mats made of rice straw or thatch. They are thus protected from damage by frost from February onwards until the end of March, when the new leaf begins to bud. They spend a great deal of money on this for the sake of the profit that is to be obtained, as we shall say, for the trade in cha is very great." 

"In Japan, the best [cha] is grown only in the town called Uji, three leagues from the court of Miyako, whence it is taken to all parts of the kingdom. The cha leaves used in the drink are the soft new ones and the first to sprout in the spring in march, when they are picked. Just as in our vineyards, so too this crop is brought in by large numbers of people, who can distinguish the good new leaf that is to be picked from the old and inferior one that is left." He goes onto describe steaming, lightly roasting in baskets while constantly moving the leaves by hand, going on to say that the Chinese will drink it "cooked in hot water," while the Japanese prefer it ground into powder. 

The rest of the chapter describes packing, distribution and how the Chinese serve their guests without ceremony. A further chapter details what we can recognize as cha no yu, the Japanese tea ceremony. 

Rodrigues lived in Japan from 1577 until 1610, arriving as a teenager. He picked up Japanese quickly and, after a briefish trip to Goa to be ordained a Jesuit priest, returned. His ability as a translator meant he knew a lot of the feudal movers and shakers. Toyotomi Hideyoshi (who was suspicious of foreigners) was nonetheless so impressed with him, he took him on as personal interpreter. Additionally, he produced a Japanese grammar, Arte da Lingoa de Iapam (The Art of the Japanese Language). His "History" was written in the early 1620s based on his experiences and recollections and was to have been part of a multi-volume opus on the Jesuit mission in Japan. Only one volume survives. It's a clunky read - Rodrigues did not consider himself a good writer and expected someone else would come along and pretty up his data dump. Translator Michael Collins describes the challenges in cleaning up repetitions and so forth. That said, it's a remarkable bit of source material, not only for its detail, but for Rodrigues' sympathetic view of the people he was describing. 

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Today's tea was the Ippodo hojicha. I brewed it a little weaker today. Flavor is still quite nice, if not as in-your-face. 6g/150ml, 200F, multiple 45 second steeps.