On a summer afternoon in Mexico City’s leafy Roma Norte neighborhood, a steady stream of customers filled the tiny coffee shop Raku, which means “joy” in Japanese. While they were drawn by the coffee, I was in the new spot to learn how the owner Mauricio Zubirats makes a cup of matcha tea.

The fine green powder from Kyoto was measured, mixed with hot water and — using a brush made from a single piece of bamboo — whisked exactly 30 times. The moss-colored result was earthy and bitter, and for a second, I was transported from this cafe tucked between two parking garages to Japan.

Despite being oceans apart, Mexico and Japan have long been connected, ever since 1614, when samurai Hasekura Tsunenaga arrived in Acapulco as the first Japanese ambassador of New Spain. In Mexico City, a modern-day reminder of the relationship appears every spring, when the jacaranda trees — the first of which were planted in the 1920s at the suggestion of Tatsugoro Matsumoto, a Japanese immigrant and imperial gardener from Tokyo — burst with purple, cloudlike blooms.