Matcha

There's been a lot of press lately about matcha, and for good reasons. These days, matcha is being used in ice cream, in latte, baked goods. It's safe to say that this is one ingredient you'll being seeing more and more of. It is important to understand, however, that there are many grades of matcha green tea, ranging from food grade to the higher qualities of ceremonial matcha. Lately, there has been a glut of lower quality matcha green teas imported from China, as well as powdered sencha passed off as matcha. Therefore, we'll attempt to help you make heads from tails of matcha green tea.

All About Matcha

You may have noticed that, as with other quality green teas, matcha tends to be expensive. There really is no such thing as a good quality matcha that is cheap. This is mostly due to the amount of labor involved in bringing it to the market. Unlike regular sun grown green tea (sencha), matcha is derived from gyokuro. Gyokuro is a green tea that has been grown under 90% shade three weeks prior to harvest. Like other types of shade grown green tea, the leaves used for matcha are steamed to prevent fermentation. Unlike gyokuro, however, the leaves for matcha are only processed to a certain point and are not rolled. Instead, matcha leaves are processed so that the veins are removed, producing a product known as "tencha". This is done in a what looks like a big wind tunnel, with the matcha leaves being blown around until just the inner parts remain floating around in the air. The soon to be matcha tencha bits is further refined by grinding, traditionally on a stone mill. The resulting product is known as matcha. Since there are so many steps involved, each adding additional labor, matcha tends to be the most expensive of all green tea.

There Are Two Basic Types of Matcha

There is the thick type known as "koicha", and the thin type known as "usucha". One common misconception is that the think types is stronger. In reality, the thick type is the milder of the two. Koicha is not actually thicker or stronger than usucha. In fact, koicha has a milder, sweeter taste than usucha. The reason koicha is considered "thick" has more to do with how it is used. Thick matcha is used to make thick tea, and typically twice the amount of powder is used when making it. If twice as much thin matcha were used to make thicker tea, the taste would become too bitter. For that reason, most thick matcha comes from plants that exceed thirty years in age. Once again, this specialization adds to the cost of the tea, making koicha one of the most expensive, yet exquisite teas available. Here is a really nice, basic Uji matcha that we recommend.

Here is one reliable source for various types of very high quality Matcha. Unlike most of the products you may see advertised on the internet, this company's matcha is shipped directly to it's customers from Japan, with both manufacture and expiration date clearly printed on the bottom of each can, and is stored under refrigeration until shipped directly to you. Try some today!