Lizzy's Corner — matcha

Matcha is a special type of green tea made from the fine powder of ground tea leaves. Instead of steeping it like you do with green leaves, you whisk it with hot (not boiling) water and consume the entire drink, including the powdered leaf. For many centuries, matcha has been used as a ceremonial beverage in the Japanese tea ceremony. These days you don't have to travel to Japan to experience traditional matcha. Here's an overview of the steps and tools used to make matcha in a more relaxed environment than a formal tea ceremony. Scoop about 1 1/2 teaspoons of ceremonial grade...

What is matcha? Matcha is a powdered tea made from a type of green tea called tencha, a partially shade-grown green tea, specifically produced for matcha. After harvesting, tencha is deveined, de-stemmed, and ground to make matcha. Beginning in the 12th century, Japanese monasteries and the imperial court in Kyoto used matcha as a ceremonial beverage. Although it continues to be used for tea ceremonies, over the past few years matcha has grown in popularity as a health food and culinary ingredient. You may have noticed matcha lattes, matcha cookies, matcha smoothies and much more in cafes and restaurants. We...

Halfway through my Japan Tea Tour in May 2015, we visited a large matcha processing facility in Uji (south of Kyoto). If you haven't had matcha before, it's a powdered tea that is used in Japanese tea ceremonies. Recently, there's been a "matcha boom" in the US as health conscious consumers add it to their smoothies, baked goods, lattes, etc. There are various grades of matcha, including culinary and ceremonial, and on our tour we were able to see the different processing methods. In order to increase the flavor and color of the tea leaves, the tea plants used for...

In May I traveled to Japan to take part in a Tea Tour of Japan! Dan Robertson of World Tea Tours was the amazing organizer and guide, and the group was a mix of people from the US and UK tea industries. We started in Tokyo and our first stop was Shikuoka near Mt. Fuji. We visited tea fields, several processing plants, a tea museum and a tea auction. As you can imagine, we did a lot of tea tasting at each stop, learning about the differences between sencha, gyokuro, hojicha and other types of Japanese tea. From Shizuoka we...

At the beginning of every month we send out our Tea Club selections with information about the month's teas along with some tea trivia, recipes, history, tea and food pairings, etc. I figured last month's tea history about the countries where tea started would be an interesting blog post too. The five traditional originating countries of tea are: China: Tea started in China thousands of years ago and was consumed initially for it medicinal qualities. Today China is best known for their pan fired green teas. Japan: Buddhist monks brought steamed green tea from Japan to China in the ninth...

Matcha is one of the few teas made from powdered leaves. As noted in this matcha blog post, matcha is made from Tencha green tea leaves. The tea plants are shaded by tarps for a few weeks before the harvest. This boosts the chlorophyll, amino acids and other flavor compounds in the tea leaves. One amino acid called L-Theanine provides a relaxing effect when you drink matcha and other green teas. Matcha has a clean vegetal flavor and sometimes people describe it as an acquired taste. If you haven't tried matcha before, you may want to try it in a recipe...