Usucha vs koicha
Thin matcha and thick matcha are not strengths of one drink. They use different grades of powder, different ratios, different whisking, different bowls and different etiquette, and koicha is the one chanoyu builds its formal occasion around.
What is being compared
Why these get confused
English writing routinely describes koicha as 'strong matcha' and usucha as 'weak', which suggests one liquid at two dilutions. The powder is a different grade, the whisking is a different motion with an opposite goal, and the caddies and etiquette differ. Making koicha with usucha powder is the commonest way people discover the distinction is real.
Point by point
| Aspect | Matcha usucha grade | Matcha koicha grade |
|---|---|---|
| How much powder | Roughly 2 g to 70–80 ml of water. About a heaped chashaku scoop and a half. | Roughly 4 g to 30–40 ml. Three to four times the concentration, and it is a paste rather than a drink at the moment it comes together. |
| What the whisk is doing | Aerating. Brisk W or M strokes from the wrist, kept off the base, to build a fine even foam. The foam is the point and a coarse bubbly head means the stroke was too slow. | Kneading. Slow folding pressure to bring a paste together without lumps, and deliberately WITHOUT foam. A foamed koicha has been made wrong. |
| What grade it needs | A good matcha, and a mid-grade one is perfectly pleasant. Water dilutes, so a little roughness is forgivable. | A matcha the producer made for koicha, which in practice means first-flush leaf from an old bush. At this concentration any bitterness is undiluted, and a usucha-grade powder made as koicha is genuinely unpleasant. |
| In the mouth | Light-bodied, foamed, sweet-then-vegetal, with a clean finish. A drink you take in three or four mouthfuls. | Thick, glossy, closer to a warm liquid custard than to tea. Intensely sweet and umami with almost no astringency in a good one. Two or three sips and it is gone. |
| Place in chanoyu | The lighter and more frequent service, made individually for each guest, and what most people who attend anything have had. | The formal centre of a full chaji, served in one bowl shared among guests in turn, in near silence. Usucha frequently follows it as the relaxation of the occasion. |
| Utensils | Powder kept in a natsume, a lacquered wooden caddy. A standard chasen. | Powder kept in a chaire, a ceramic caddy in a fabric pouch — historically among the most valuable objects in the room. A chasen with more, softer tines for kneading. |
| Cost per serving | Modest. A 30 g tin is fifteen or so bowls. | Several times higher, and compounding: twice the powder, at several times the price per gram. |
The short answer
They answer different occasions rather than sitting on a quality ladder. A reader learning to whisk is learning usucha, and should be — it is more forgiving, cheaper to practise with and the technique transfers. Koicha is worth meeting once with a matcha actually sold for it, because thin matcha gives no useful impression of what thick matcha is like, and most people who dislike the idea have never had a good one.
Not a ranking. TeaHQ publishes no ratings and does not know your occasion.