Matcha, the refined heart of Tea Ceremony

When you finally make it to Japan and sit down at Cha-no-Yu (Tea Ceremony), you’ll enter a rarefied air. Perhaps no

And at its heart? Matcha.

Like tea ceremony itself, this green tea powder is the essence of Japanese green tea stripped down.

The essentials are there, from its bracing, sweet-and-bitter taste to its emerald green liquor. Drinking it may remind you of sencha, or gyokuro, or another Japanese tea.

Yet Matcha’s unique from the moment it’s planted.

Matcha’s story (and flavor) are as unique as Japan

When Japan imported tea from China, powdered green tea was the drink of choice. It was a fairly rough drink, not like Chinese tea today. Then the Japanese kept refining this tea… like an oyster turns a grain of sand into a pearl.

So Matcha gets a total treatment.

First it’s grown in the shade like gyokuro. This increases the chlorophyll and amino acids in the leaves. Hand-picked, they’re gently heated to fix in the flavor.

And then they’re ground up in stone mortars, leaving a fine green tea dust.

The best matcha uses only new leaves. So it’s expensive, and best bought in season. It may not keep long on your shelf, but it has a flavor beyond compare. It’s best taken with a sweet beforehand, as in the tea ceremony.

And even though tea ceremony features matcha, it has its place among the health nuts of the modern West. With matcha, you’re drinking the powdered leaf, not just the steeped tea. So you get a higher dose of both the catechin antioxidants and caffeine.

Some of the health nuts down at my local tea shop drink matcha shots every day! Me? I prefer to sit back with it now and then, for a little private tea ceremony.

Try it both ways and see which you like best!

BUY MATCHA HERE

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When making matcha, you’ve got a little task ahead of you. Unlike other green teas, matcha needs a mini-ritual. Try this:

1. You’ll probably want to use the Specialized Cha-no-Yu Toolkit. Matcha whisk. Matcha spoon. Matcha bowl!
2. Matcha kimono optional.
3. The bowl’s important, because you’re going to whisk around the matcha into a fearsome froth. Your crazed whisking will not tolerate a tiny cup!
4. Using Matcha Spoon, place 1 tspn into Matcha Bowl. Apply hot water, about 180 degrees F / 80 degrees C. Don’t fill the bowl! If you’re feeling fancy, pour the water into another pot from your kettle, then into the Matcha Bowl. This takes the edge off, like whiskey sours for a CEO
5. Whisk it! Whisk it good. Whisk it real good! I like to scream while whisking.
6. First, go Figure-8 to break up chunks of powder. Then, back-and-forth. Slow then WITH FEELING, vigorous! Then slowly lift the matcha whisk vertically to remove and break up large bubbles. Yes!
7. Important: avoid circular motions, as they make big bubbles that will embarrass you among your matcha peers.

Now, this varies a little from the refined schools of Japanese Tea Ceremony. It’s more of an everyday matcha drinking for the health nut or the modern tea lover. But it is not like the crappy whisking instructions I have seen from certain among the Internet Video crowd, whose whisking techniques result in bubbles of disastrous quality.

You want uniform bubbles evenly covering the top of your tea. Uniform bubbles = Happy Matcha!