What is ceremonial grade matcha?

The tea leaves which will eventually become matcha powder grow on the rolling hills surrounding Kyoto and in the Aichi province of Japan.

The rippling shape of the lines of tea shrubs matches the undulating landscape, which flows on into the distance in a vibrant shade of green. It’s hard to imagine a place where you could feel closer to the power of nature.

But matcha is special for more than simply the beauty of its cultivation.

It has has an elaborate cultural history which involves unique preparation methods, drinking rituals and different grades suited to different occasions. It’s a fascinating story, which we’ll get into below.

But first, let’s start with the basics: what matcha tea actually is, and how the very finest version of it is produced.

What is matcha?

Matcha is a kind of green tea. It’s famous for its distinctive flavour and impressive health benefits.

Believe it or not, almost every single type of tea (be it green, black, white, oolong, matcha or others) comes from just one plant: a shrub called Camellia sinensis.

It’s an evergreen with characteristic oval-shaped, slightly serrated leaves. Most teas are made from the leaves. However, you can also make ‘twig tea’ from the boughs of the plant.

The difference between types of tea comes from the way the leaves are processed. There are five possible steps to tea processing: plucking, withering, rolling, oxidizing and firing. Some teas go through all of these steps, while others might only go through one or two.

Black tea, for example, goes through all of the five steps and is fully oxidised. This gives black tea its dark colour and characteristic flavour.

Green tea is typically only plucked (i.e. picked from the plant), withered (to remove moisture) and rolled (to wring out any leftover liquid).

Matcha, however, is a class apart. To make it, the farmer must take care at every step of the process, from growing the plant through to grinding the leaves.

How is matcha made?

First of all, the Camellia sinensis plant must be carefully grown and tended.

Come springtime, in preparation for plucking, matcha growers shade their plants with bamboo reed mats for up to two months. The purpose of this is to reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the leaves. As a result, the leaves produce more chlorophyll, and develop a vibrant green colour.

In early May, the harvest begins, on the 88th day after the first day of spring. The leaves, too delicate to be handled by machinery, are plucked by hand. They are very briefly steamed to help them retain their colour, and then gently dried, usually by hand tossing. This must be done within 20 hours of plucking.

At this point, the tea is known as ‘tencha’.

Next, the growers grade and clean the tencha. All twigs and woody bits are removed, and then the stems and veins of the leaves themselves are taken away. Only now can the tencha be stone-ground into matcha.

Some farms still use the traditional hand-operated stone mills that their ancestors would have used centuries ago. Others, meanwhile, have modernised slightly and use machine-operated mills.(1)

Nevertheless, matcha requires a very slow and careful grinding process. If ground too quickly, the friction of the stone mill would produce heat which would alter the flavour and aroma of the matcha. It can take up to an hour to stone-grind just 30g of matcha tea. This process gives matcha its name, which literally means ‘ground tea’.(2)

Ceremonial grade matcha

Clearly, making any kind of matcha is a very labour-intensive process, which goes some way to explaining why it is so prized. But just as with other types of tea, there is a lot of variety in its quality. For this reason, we separate matcha into grades.

Ceremonial grade matcha is the highest grade of matcha.

It is made from the youngest and best quality leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant. It is also graded based on the end product, which should have a noticeably vibrant green colour, superior flavour and an excellent terroir.

As in wine-making, a terroir is essentially the environment in which the plant is grown. Soil quality, climate and other plants growing in the area can all affect the terroir.