Matcha

Matcha is a wonderful stone ground tea from Japan. Ultimately we like it because its is lovely tea to drink, but many also prize for it's health benefits, as it is naturally high in antioxidants and catechins.  The main reason for this is that when you drink matcha, you are ingesting the whole leaves (that have been ground) rather than when you drink a similar tea such as sencha, where you are only drinking the infused liquid, and the leaves themselves stay in the teapot.

Matcha is slightly higher in caffeine than other teas (again mainly down to the fact that you are ingesting the leaves), but a normal serving is still roughly equivalent to a half a single espresso.

Good matcha should not be cheap, it is a labour intensive tea to grow. The tea bushes are shaded before harvesting, and the tea itself must be ground very slowly between two stone mills. It takes around an hour to grind one of our cans of matcha.

When it comes to grades, you will often see the term 'ceremonial'. This is more of a western marketing term, and is not used in Japan. It's much more about the quality. You wouldn't use a matcha of drinking quality to make dessert or ice cream.

Both our matchas are of exceptional quality for the price. We buy direct from a farmers cooperative based in the mountains just outside the town of Uji in Kyoto Prefecture. We have visited the tea fields, and the factory, we know the people that make our teas and have worked with them for years to ensure you will get some of the best quality matcha available in the UK