Recognize good matcha tea - what to look for?
Matcha tea can be very tasty, has a positive effect on health and can be used in many different ways. So it's no wonder that the popularity of green tea in powder form continues to grow. But what should you look out for when buying it? How should it smell, taste and look? We explain the most important things.
The origin
Matcha harvesting traditional Japanese by hand in the tea garden of Mr. Hasegawa.
The first thing you should pay attention to before you even order is the origin. Just like our matcha, "real matcha" comes exclusively from Japan. But what about Chinese matcha? China also produces high-quality green tea - so why not buy matcha from there too? In most cases, the know-how to produce high-quality matcha is hardly available. After all, Japan and its tea farmers can look back on centuries of experience. Shading the tea plants before harvesting, selecting the best tea leaves, separating the leaf veins from the tea leaf, steaming the tea leaves - these are all things that are not normally part of tea production in China. However, due to the high profits that can sometimes be achieved with matcha, more and more attempts are being made to imitate Japanese matcha. In the end, however, it remains just that: an imitation and not the original.
Ingredients: Green tea powder or 100% matcha
Mr. Yoshiharu in his tea garden. Only the top two leaves and the bud are harvested for the matcha.
Surprisingly cheap matcha tea is often sold in drugstores or on the Internet. How does this work? Matcha is usually not made from matcha at all. Much cheaper: powdered loose green tea is sold as matcha powder. How can you tell? At best, the list of ingredients will state that it is ground sencha or other green tea. In the worst case, it is not stated on the packaging. In this case, you can only tell whether it is genuine matcha after you have bought it. How exactly? All you have to do is read on(or click here to go to the summary at the end of the article ;) ).
The powder: color and consistency
Hello, gray friend. You should rather not drink Matcha with such a color.
If your Matcha looks like our Matcha No.1, you have done everything right.
An easily recognizable quality feature is the color of the powder. In the case of matcha, the tea plants are shaded before harvesting. During this time, the concentration of chlorophyll in the leaves increases significantly. This gives the tea a beautiful deep green color. If this step has not been carried out or if other green tea has been used, the powder is yellowish or, in the worst case, grayish. This is a clear sign that it does not contain real matcha.
The consistency should be similar to flour. Really fine matcha literally sticks to the spoon and colors everything that comes into contact with it. One of the reasons for this is that the leaf veins are not processed in real matcha. If, for example, sencha is ground, the leaf veins are inevitably included. Of course, it also depends on the grinder used. Incidentally, if you find soft lumps in the matcha, this is usually a sign of quality. The matcha is so fine that it sometimes clumps together. Why is this important? The finer the powder, the easier it is to froth the matcha and the better it dissolves in water.
To summarize: the more intense the green and the finer the powder, the higher the quality of the matcha.
Smell: fruits and grass
Fishy. Musty. Like hay. Metallic. Doesn't really sound pleasant, does it? These are all smells that should never appear in a matcha. If your nose sniffs out such smells, you've definitely bought an imitation matcha. Should you drink the matcha anyway? We do not recommend it - after all, you are drinking the entire plant and not just the infusion. Such odors can indicate not only poor quality, but also pesticide or foreign substance contamination. So better keep your hands off.
What are the good smells? Sweet, flowery, fruity, slightly grassy or nutty. A good Matcha can smell like this. Depending on the variety, only these or other pleasant odors should appear here.
Taste: Mild to strong
Here at the latest, the imitation shows its unattractive side.
Makes you thirsty. Nice foam and a green color.
Apart from the smell, the most important quality feature is probably the taste. Here, of course, it is first and foremost a matter of personal preference. However, a few rules can also be established here. Good matcha can have different flavors. These usually range from (slightly) bitter to sweet, from grassy to fruity, from mild to strong, etc. - As long as it is perceived as pleasant, it is probably a good matcha. What shouldn't it taste like? A strong taste of fish or algae, damp hay or fermentation, strongly bitter or sour, sharp or metallic, etc.? There are no limits to your imagination here. Once again, I would like to say this. If you have such a matcha in front of you, the barrel is the best place for it.
Practical example: real matcha vs. drugstore matcha
To show it with an example, we have compared our Matcha No.1 with the Matcha of a health food store chain as well as a drugstore chain. Already in the picture of the powder you can see clear differences.
Organic chain. Yellow-greyish color and coarse: definitely not a real matcha.
Drugstore: Although the color is better, but a little yellowish and the lumps are relatively hard.
SHO CHA: Deep green color and uniformly fine powder. The lumps disintegrate when touched.
After preparation, the differences become even more obvious.
We only get a really nice matcha foam with the SHO CHA matcha. The drugstore matcha has an acceptable foam at first, but it disappears very quickly.
What is the smell and taste like?
The organic store matcha smells strongly fishy and, except for bitter, doesn't actually taste like much. A mild green tea was definitely ground here - we assume a Chinese green tea. The bitterness is bearable but for enjoyment this tea is unsuitable.
The drugstore matcha smells slightly sweet. Unfortunately, a sharp and slightly fishy smell is subliminally noticeable. Nevertheless, acceptable. However, we are extremely surprised by the taste: The bitterness is almost unbearable. The whole mouth contracts. Thus, not much else can be tasted. According to the packaging, Japanese organic matcha was used here, but some shortcuts were certainly taken during production. Perhaps not long enough shaded, leaf veins or stems with processed or even stored incorrectly (hence the hard lumps?). Unsuitable for drinking in our opinion.
Our SHO CHA Matcha No.1 smells sweetish and intensely aromatic. In taste, we move between sweetish and very slightly tart. The matcha is pleasantly soft on the tongue and very balanced. A strong aromatic Matcha.
Conclusion: Where to get good matcha?
It would be a lie to say that we are the only ones who have real matcha. There are now several online stores and tea stores that offer very good matcha. All we can say about our green teas is that you can trust us to make the right choice of real matcha. What's more? Our matcha varieties only ever come from one tea farmer from one tea garden, who completely avoid the use of pesticides. This means you can not only enjoy delicious tea but also do something for your health at the same time. Just take a look in our online store. Finally, a (greatly simplified) overview as a little reminder ;)