Matcha usucha grade

Where it grows

The districts recorded against this tea, all of them in Japan. Elevation is given as the band the district is recorded at, not a measurement of the garden this leaf came from.

• Uji — 30–300 metres

  How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it. Uji’s tea land is low-lying by international standards; the figures here are approximate and should be replaced with a sourced range before publication.

• Wazuka — 100–500 metres

  How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it.

The plants it is made from

Cultivar is the level below the variety group: a named selection of the tea plant, propagated as clones from one parent. Most consumer writing stops at the country and the category, which leaves out the layer that decides how the leaf behaves before anyone picks it.

• Okumidori — Camellia sinensis var. sinensis

  Its late season is an agronomic virtue rather than a flavour one, but it is why so much single-cultivar matcha is Okumidori.

• Samidori — Camellia sinensis var. sinensis

  Frequently blended with Gokou: Samidori for body, Gokou for aroma. Single-cultivar matcha is the exception rather than the norm.

How it is made, in order

Read top to bottom: the list is the production sequence, and the sequence is what makes this tea its category rather than a neighbouring one. The same leaf from the same bush becomes a green tea or a black tea depending on where the heat falls relative to the bruising, so reordering these steps would not vary the tea — it would produce a different one.

1. 1. Shading — Restricts light to the growing leaf, shifting its amino-acid and polyphenol balance and deepening its colour before harvest.
2. 2. Steaming (Japanese fixation) — Denatures polyphenol oxidase using saturated steam, arresting oxidation without applying dry contact heat to the leaf surface.
3. 3. De-stemming and de-veining — Separates leaf blade from stem and coarse vein, standardising the material that goes into the finished tea.
4. 4. Stone milling — Reduces tencha to a particle size of a few microns without heating the leaf enough to damage its aromatics or colour.

The route it is made by

The steps above are what happens; this is the named production route they belong to, with the other teas made the same way.

• Shaded, unrolled and milled (tencha to matcha) — The route defined by an omission. Everything else in green tea rolls the leaf; this one deliberately does not, and the whole product depends on that refusal.

  Where it is practised: Japanese, and concentrated in Uji, Nishio, Yame and Kagoshima. Powdered tea is made elsewhere by grinding ordinary green tea, which produces a different product by a different route.

What its chemistry turns on

Every true tea contains caffeine, catechins and amino acids, so listing them would say nothing about this one. What differs is what the processing above does to them — and that is the same list of steps, read for its chemistry instead of its craft.

The compounds that substantially decide what this tea is: Free amino acids, L-theanine, Tea saponins.

• Shading
  • raises Arginine
  • raises Caffeine
  • raises Chlorophyll
  • raises Dimethyl sulfide
  • raises Free amino acids
  • raises Glutamic acid
  • raises L-theanine
  • raises Strecker aldehydes
  • lowers Carotenoids
  • lowers Catechins
  • lowers EGCG (epigallocatechin gallate)
  • lowers Flavonol glycosides
• Steaming (Japanese fixation)
  • creates Dimethyl sulfide
  • lowers Green-leaf volatiles
  • locks Chlorophyll
  • locks EGCG (epigallocatechin gallate)
• De-stemming and de-veining
  • raises L-theanine
  • lowers Caffeine
  • lowers Strecker aldehydes
  • lowers Tea saponins

These are statements about the leaf and the cup. What any of these compounds does in a body is a different kind of question and is not answered here or on the pages linked from it.

Brewing

• Whisking (bowl-prepared powdered tea)

  2–4 g/100 ml · 70–80 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Open in the brew assistant

Vessels this tea suits

Recorded against the tea rather than against a brewing style, because the vessel does not always follow from the method — a whisk needs lateral room whatever the schedule says, and compressed leaf needs a pick before any method applies at all.

• Matcha sieve — A fine mesh screen, often in a small tin with a lid, that matcha is pushed through before water is added. Milled tea compacts into clumps in storage under its own weight and static, and no amount of whisking breaks a compacted clump apart once it is wet — the outside hydrates and seals the inside.

When the cup goes wrong

Written against green tea as a category rather than against this tea in particular, and worked back from the symptom to the likely causes in order. 37 apply to the category; the first 6 are shown.

• I bought a big bag to save money and it was stale before I finished it — A large quantity bought at a good unit price faded well before it was drunk, so the saving turned into waste.
• I bought a water filter for my tea and it changed nothing — A filter jug or tap filter was bought specifically to improve the tea, and the cup tastes the same as it did before — with the same dullness, the same film and the same scale in the kettle.
• I have too many teas open and most of them are going stale — A dozen or more packets are open at once, three or four get drunk regularly, and the rest fade quietly on the shelf until they are thrown away.
• Leaves stick to the cup, the pot and my teeth — Fine leaf clings to the inside of the vessel, comes through into the cup, and ends up in the last mouthful.
• My bamboo whisk is losing tines — Fine bamboo tines snap off during whisking and turn up in the bowl, and the whisk feels stiff and splayed.
• My cold brew tastes like faintly flavoured water — After a night in the fridge the jug is pale and tastes of very little, with none of the sweetness cold brewing is supposed to give.

Every diagnosed brewing problem

If you like this

Grouped by why they were suggested, strongest reason first. Nothing here is a blended score — a suggestion appears under the best reason that exists for it, and never under a weaker one as well.

Compare this tea with another

Written comparisons

Where TeaHQ has set this tea against another in full, rather than deriving the comparison. Each one is a written page with the points of difference argued out.

• Matcha grades explained — There is no official matcha grading system, and the terms everyone uses were invented by sellers. What actually varies is measurable, and this compares the two ends of it. Put the two side by side
• 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. Put the two side by side