OVERVIEW OF MATCHA
“What kind of tea do I add to matcha powder to make a drink?” This is the question that I have been asked so many times when talking about matcha. The answer is NO! It is unnecessary to add additional tea to make matcha. Generally speaking, matcha itself is TEA. When you are having matcha, you are consuming the entirety of the tea leaves because matcha is a powder that is made from finely ground green tea leaves.
Tea leaves for making matcha are specifically grown in the shade seasonally, and the flavor is much more intense and varies greatly from typical green tea. Although matcha is a type of green tea, its caffeine content is a bit higher than regular green tea due to different growing and grinding methods. Compared with coffee, the caffeine content in matcha is lower on average - roughly 25-75mg of caffeine in an 8oz serving of matcha.
Most matcha comes from Uji, the tea capital of Japan near Kyoto, or in the Yame district of Fukuoka, Japan on the southern island of Kyushu.
HOW MATCHA IS GROWN AND HARVESTED
To make top-quality matcha, there are five significant steps are needed to follow:
Cultivation, shading, feeding, cultivars, and grinding.
Cultivation: There are two parts in this step - choose a good soil practice to grow the tea and hand-pick to sift out low-quality leaves.
Shading: Ideally, the well-cultivated green tea leaves are shaded several weeks before harvest, this is to maximize its flavor and amino acids.
Feeding: Matcha has its unique umami taste that much other tea leaves lack. In order to achieve the high umami flavor, matcha will be feeding fish by putting a certain amount of fish in the soil of the tea plants.
Cultivars: After that, only the finest supple buds are hand-plucked and laid out to dry.
Grinding: This should be a slow and careful process - after removing the stems and veins, the dried leaves have to be grounded extremely slowly to avoid the heat of the millstones which may burn and ruin the batch.
*Reference: “The Insider’s Guide to Matcha Green Tea” from The Flow by Jessica Ederer: https://blog.piquetea.com/matcha-green-tea/amp/
MATCHA PREPARATION
Step 1: Filter powder for a smoother taste
Step 2: Make sure the temperature of water for your matcha is no more than 175f/80c.
Step 3: Pour hot water over the powder, 2-4 grams of matcha powder for up to 4oz of water.
Step 4: Whisk.
Step 5: Sweeten to taste with Fanale’s Golden Cane Sugar.
Step 6: Pour over Milk
Serving Suggestions: iced/hot
TIPS:
Iced matcha latte: prepare ice inside of a cup first, and then add in the matcha mixture and milk.
Hot matcha latte: combine steamed milk and the matcha mixture.