My matcha tastes harshly bitter

In short

Matcha has no strainer and no timer, so there is nothing to adjust after the fact — everything in the powder ends up in the bowl. That makes it the least forgiving preparation in tea, and it narrows the causes to water temperature, dose and grade.

Likely causes, in order

Most likely first. Answer the question under each one before moving on — several of these look alike in the cup and are told apart only by what was done to the leaf.

1. 1. Water too hot

   Temperature

   Check: Was the water freshly boiled, or straight from a kettle with no setting?

   Fix: Use 70 to 80 °C. Boiling water produces a harshness that nothing downstream can undo, and it does not improve suspension either.

2. 2. Too much powder for the water

   Leaf quantity

   Check: Are you using heaped scoops rather than level ones, or making koicha proportions by accident?

   Fix: A level chashaku scoop holds roughly a gram and two is a usual usucha dose. Heaped scoops quietly double it, and the result is thick, bitter and easy to blame on the powder.

3. 3. A culinary or lower grade sold for drinking

   Leaf quality

   Check: Is the powder dull olive or khaki rather than vivid jade, and was it sold for baking or lattes?

   Fix: Coarser, hotter milling gives a khaki colour and a flatter, harsher powder from identical leaf. Culinary grade is made to survive sugar and milk; drunk plain it tastes of exactly that intention.

4. 4. The powder has been open for months

   Storage

   Check: How long has the tin been open, and where is it kept?

   Fix: Matcha dulls fast once opened. Keep it sealed and cold, buy the smallest quantity of the best grade you can, and expect a tin to be past its best within weeks rather than months.

5. 5. Whisked too long in a bowl that has gone cold

   TechniqueInferred by TeaHQ, not established

   Check: Was the bowl warmed first, and how long did the whisking take?

   Fix: Warm the bowl and the whisk with hot water and discard it. A cold bowl drops the temperature so far that people compensate with hotter water, which is the actual cause.

Tea types this applies to

• Green tea

Brewing methods this applies to

• Whisking (bowl-prepared powdered tea) — Powdered leaf suspended in water rather than steeped and strained — the only common preparation in which the leaf itself is consumed rather than discarded.

Related problems

Sharing a cause category, a tea type or a brewing method with this one.

• My Japanese green tea tastes of seaweed or fish — A sencha, gyokuro or matcha reads as marine — seaweed at best, distinctly fishy at worst — and it is not clear whether that is the tea or a fault.
• My matcha is harsh and I think it is a cooking grade — A matcha bought to drink is dull-coloured, gritty and aggressively bitter, and the tin says culinary, cooking or ingredient grade — or says nothing at all.
• My matcha latte is lumpy and the powder sinks — Whisked straight into milk, the matcha forms lumps that will not break up, and within a minute a green layer has settled at the bottom of the glass.
• My matcha powder has gone dull green or khaki — The powder that was vivid green when the tin was opened is now olive, khaki or faintly brown, and the bowl looks muddy rather than bright.
• My matcha foams and then the foam collapses — A good head of foam forms during whisking and has largely disappeared by the time the bowl reaches the table, leaving a flat surface with a ring of bubbles round the edge.

Sources