Whenever the temperature in Boston breaks into the 50s during this time of year, there’s only one thing I crave — an iced drink. Last week, we got our first day like that, and I passed by a college building and saw a couple of students sitting on the lawn with a drink. In one of their hands was a delightful green beverage dancing with the ice, droplets sliding down along the cup — matcha.
But not all matcha is the same. The grade and quality differ a lot from cafe to cafe, powder to powder. Matcha has a profound history in Japan. After being introduced by a Zen Buddhist Monk, Eisai, from China in the late 12th century, matcha gradually became a ritual in Japan. But finding the best quality for the price today is sometimes hard. So whether you are making it at home or splurging on a latte for yourself, here’s a complete guide to matcha to help you find the best powders and cafes.
How To Find The Best Matcha Powder For Making Drinks At Home
When you want to make a matcha-flavored cake or have a matcha latte at home, matcha powder is an essential ingredient. Rather than steeping leaves in water, as people drink traditional green tea, the green tea leaves made for matcha are dried and ground into fine powder. A few weeks before harvest, the tea leaves are shaded, which gives matcha its vibrant green color and umami flavor (due to the accumulation of chlorophyll and amino acids).
The highest-quality matcha has a vibrant green color and balances the flavors of natural sweetness, slight bitterness, and earthiness. On the contrary, lower-quality matcha has a more yellowish or brownish color and a coarse texture.
Based on quality, flavor, and usage, matcha can be divided into three categories. The lowest is culinary grade, specifically made for cooking and baking. This matcha powder is yellow-green with a strong and bitter taste, in order to work with the sugar in baking. Daily grade matcha, considered the ‘middle of the road’ matcha, is widely used in matcha drinks. It has a light green color with a smooth texture and a vegetal flavor. The most premium one is the ceremonial grade. It’s best for the traditional tea ceremonies and to enjoy the matcha itself. It has a vibrant green color and rich umami and slightly sweet flavor.
Linesse Lam, a matcha creator on Instagram, said almost all of the matcha she has, she makes at home. When she chooses which matcha powder brand to try, she looks at the cultivars (the different tea varieties cross-bred to create the best tea blend), tasting notes on the website, and reviews from others.
“I like matchas that are floral, bold, and a little earthy and umami,” she told Spoon University in an interview. “I’m not too big a fan of bitter. It can be good, but there is a pleasant bitter or a bad bitter. I also like to look at the color. If it’s a good color, a lot of times that means it’s a higher grade, rather than if it were a dull color.”
For the best matcha pairings, Lam said her favorite is Earl Grey or agave syrup with oat milk, though a lot of people love matcha with fruit flavors.
“Oat milk pairs really well with matcha, and it doesn’t mask the flavor of the matcha taste. I feel like it enhances it,” she said.
The best way to get into making matcha at home is to start with easy powders, Lam said, which are easily accessible on Amazon, or from well-known companies, such as Ippodo Tea, Matcha Sense, Nami Matcha, and Junbi.
How To Spot A Coffee Shop With Good Matcha
As matcha has become a trendy flavor, especially among Gen Z, coffee shops have taken advantage and thrown lots of drink varieties on the menu, including matcha. But it’s hard to know if you’re getting a good matcha drink until you try it. There are some things to look for that can help you out before splurging $9 on a latte.
Start with using the same evaluation method as with at-home powders. Look at the color to figure out if a coffee shop uses high-quality matcha powder to make your matcha drinks. And ask if they are making each matcha by hand or if they use a paste or premade batch that sits in a refrigerator. The best matcha drinks are made fresh in front of you. If you spot a matcha whisk and bowl setup somewhere behind the counter, it’s likely they make each drink to order.
Selena Carera, who runs The Matcha Review account on Instagram, told Spoon that she thinks customers can find good matcha in a shop with “hipster retro vibe.” She added that good matcha is hard to find in normal coffee shops or restaurants, but a place serving it “as a specialty” is the one to look for.
To get a bit more info, I met up with my friends and matcha connoisseurs Megan Zhang and Nia Steward at Maruichi Select, a specialty Japanese grocery store and cafe. Zhang ordered the lemon matcha tonic.
“I think this store whisks [matcha] by hand,” she said. “A lot of smaller cafes use a whisk to make it, but in the bigger places, they [pour matcha] out of a squeeze bottle or use a mixed powder that already has sugar and stuff.”
Steward ordered a plain matcha latte in the store. She said she goes to different coffee shops weekly to try different matcha drinks.
“I assess the color, the brightness of it,” she said. “Also whether it’s lighter on the tongue [or] earthy.” When she gets a matcha latte, she focuses on the balance between umami and the decent amount of creaminess.