HOW TO MAKE COLDBREW MATCHA
|
|
|
|
|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
1) Is there anything in your matcha besides green tea?
No. It's 100% green tea leaves (camellia sinensis) that have been stone-ground to an extremely fine texture similar to that of cocoa.
2) Where is it from?
Japan. Mainly from small family co-ops near Kyoto.
3) Why is your matcha so much more vibrant than other matcha I've seen? What gives it that intense green color?
Obsession from Japanese farmers, is the short answer. The hyper-green color is mainly due to high levels of chlorophyll, produced by the careful and gradual shading of the leaves with black mesh netting. This technique produces lots of chlorophyll, which causes the bright vibrant color, and is a sure mark of a very high-quality matcha.
4) Why is matcha considered such a healthy drink?
Matcha can reduce inflammation and inhibit harmful bacterial growth. It's a probiotic powerhouse, a serious oral health aid (recommended by dentists in Japan), blood sugar stabilizer, productivity cocktail, liver health booster, and hydration enabler.
5) Is organic matcha a better overall choice than conventionally grown matcha? Does organic matcha taste better?
No and no. Our farmers don't use any chemical pesticides, so that's not an issue. Read more about this below under “Organic vs. Conventional Matcha.”
6) How much matcha is needed for a serving?
About a gram, or roughly ½ teaspoon. This means a 30-gram tin of matcha would contain 30 servings.
7) Why is your matcha more expensive than others?
Producing artisanal matcha is an extremely labor-intensive process that hasn’t changed much in nearly 1,000 years. We don't cut corners. Every step of every process, from growing to harvesting to processing, is done by hand, using slow, time-tested techniques. Orders are stone-ground at the time of ordering, and we pay the extra fees to fly it here to ensure that it's hyperfresh when it arrives at our facility in California.
8) Is green tea used in traditional Japanese and Chinese medicine?
Yes. In both Japan and China, quality green tea leaves have been used in traditional medicine as an anti-inflammatory to treat diabetes, asthma (functioning as a bronchodilator), angina pectoris, peripheral vascular disease, and coronary artery disease. It's also used to stabilize blood sugar levels. There are many studies published in Western medical and scientific periodicals on the efficacy of matcha and green tea.
ORGANIC VS CONVENTIONAL MATCHA
In the world of food, organically grown produce is often (though by no means always) superior in color, taste, and nutrition. Not so with matcha, and here's why:
For us, it’s all about taste. While organic matcha farming in Japan has made great strides recently, and some of it is now quite tasty (see our Coldbrew Organic for an excellent example of tasty organic matcha), organic matcha as a rule produces a weaker amino acid/umami profile compared to its conventionally grown brethren. Why would this be?
It has to do with how tencha (the young tea leaves used to make quality matcha) is grown. That is to say, tencha spends the last, and most important, part of its life in shade so that the amino acid content of the plant can develop and remain intact when harvested. If it gets sunlight, those coveted amino acids get converted, via photosynthesis, into catechins, a process that changes the taste from sweet and brothy to bitter and unpleasant.
The dilemma thus becomes: if a plant can’t get energy to grow from sunlight, where does it get its energy from? In matcha’s case, it gets its energy from fertilizer. It NEEDS this added energy, since it’s not getting it from sunlight, simply to stay alive and vibrant. And the bitter truth (so to speak) is that organic tea fields using organic fertilizers can’t, at least by today’s technologies and standards, give it enough energy to grow with maximum amino acid structure. It just doesn’t deliver enough nitrogen for the plant to develop the complex amino acids that give great matcha its unique and umami-driven taste profile.
That said, our farmers are hardly dumping industrial-strength fertilizers into their fields. They use very high-quality natural fertilizers (mostly fish meal and pure nitrogen), but they are not certified organic. The plant NEEDS this added energy, since it’s not getting it from sunlight.
So this is why purely organic matcha grown only with organic fertilizers is actually inferior to conventionally grown matcha: purely organic fertilizers simply don’t have enough stored energy to create these ethereal, umami-packed, new-growth leaves in the absence of sunlight.
HOW TO TELL GOOD MATCHA FROM BAD MATCHA
It’s very easy to tell good matcha from bad matcha once the package is open, but it’s impossible to tell just by looking at packaging, either online or in person. Packaging can be deceptive: always buy from a trusted source!
Once the package is open, you have a gigantic clue: color. Quality matcha should be bright, bright, BRIGHT green. Electric green. Bad matcha will be a dull green; some are even army green, others are downright yellowish. These colors are bad signs indeed: they mean that 1) leaves *other* than the youngest leaves have been used to increase volume, 2) the matcha was never stored properly (ie in freezers) and has now badly oxidized 3) the matcha contains stems and branches, or 4) most likely 1, 2, and 3. So color is the biggest immediate factor in assessing the quality of matcha.
Next: get up close to it, and take a deep, slow inhale through the nose. What does the aroma tell you? Does it smell fresh and inviting and vegetal, almost like freshly blended baby green vegetables? If so, you’ve got some good, sweet matcha. If it smells a little stale, a little dusty, a bit like old hay . . . that’s not so good.
Taste. This one is easy. After you’ve whisked your cup of matcha, does it taste good, or does it make you feel like spitting it out? Does it taste bitter or sweet (or neither)? Inferior matcha tastes unpleasantly bitter (there are those who would say that a good matcha should be pleasantly bitter, but we here at Breakaway Matcha are not among them). We prefer it to taste sweet, which is a result of the complexity of the amino acids in the tea. We certainly don’t add sugar or honey or agave or any sweetness to it; it should be naturally sweet. It should also have a great deal of umami (a brothy meatiness), which is an emergent property of the high amino acid content of great matcha.
Finish. It should have a long, pleasant finish that lasts a good 30 seconds, if not longer. Young vegetal notes should just sing on. This is the mark of a truly excellent matcha.
BEST SELLERS
Product Description
HOW TO MAKE COLDBREW MATCHA
|
|
|
|
|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
1) Is there anything in your matcha besides green tea?
No. It's 100% green tea leaves (camellia sinensis) that have been stone-ground to an extremely fine texture similar to that of cocoa.
2) Where is it from?
Japan. Mainly from small family co-ops near Kyoto.
3) Why is your matcha so much more vibrant than other matcha I've seen? What gives it that intense green color?
Obsession from Japanese farmers, is the short answer. The hyper-green color is mainly due to high levels of chlorophyll, produced by the careful and gradual shading of the leaves with black mesh netting. This technique produces lots of chlorophyll, which causes the bright vibrant color, and is a sure mark of a very high-quality matcha.
4) Why is matcha considered such a healthy drink?
Matcha can reduce inflammation and inhibit harmful bacterial growth. It's a probiotic powerhouse, a serious oral health aid (recommended by dentists in Japan), blood sugar stabilizer, productivity cocktail, liver health booster, and hydration enabler.
5) Is organic matcha a better overall choice than conventionally grown matcha? Does organic matcha taste better?
No and no. Our farmers don't use any chemical pesticides, so that's not an issue. Read more about this below under “Organic vs. Conventional Matcha.”
6) How much matcha is needed for a serving?
About a gram, or roughly ½ teaspoon. This means a 30-gram tin of matcha would contain 30 servings.
7) Why is your matcha more expensive than others?
Producing artisanal matcha is an extremely labor-intensive process that hasn’t changed much in nearly 1,000 years. We don't cut corners. Every step of every process, from growing to harvesting to processing, is done by hand, using slow, time-tested techniques. Orders are stone-ground at the time of ordering, and we pay the extra fees to fly it here to ensure that it's hyperfresh when it arrives at our facility in California.
8) Is green tea used in traditional Japanese and Chinese medicine?
Yes. In both Japan and China, quality green tea leaves have been used in traditional medicine as an anti-inflammatory to treat diabetes, asthma (functioning as a bronchodilator), angina pectoris, peripheral vascular disease, and coronary artery disease. It's also used to stabilize blood sugar levels. There are many studies published in Western medical and scientific periodicals on the efficacy of matcha and green tea.
ORGANIC VS CONVENTIONAL MATCHA
In the world of food, organically grown produce is often (though by no means always) superior in color, taste, and nutrition. Not so with matcha, and here's why:
For us, it’s all about taste. While organic matcha farming in Japan has made great strides recently, and some of it is now quite tasty (see our Coldbrew Organic for an excellent example of tasty organic matcha), organic matcha as a rule produces a weaker amino acid/umami profile compared to its conventionally grown brethren. Why would this be?
It has to do with how tencha (the young tea leaves used to make quality matcha) is grown. That is to say, tencha spends the last, and most important, part of its life in shade so that the amino acid content of the plant can develop and remain intact when harvested. If it gets sunlight, those coveted amino acids get converted, via photosynthesis, into catechins, a process that changes the taste from sweet and brothy to bitter and unpleasant.
The dilemma thus becomes: if a plant can’t get energy to grow from sunlight, where does it get its energy from? In matcha’s case, it gets its energy from fertilizer. It NEEDS this added energy, since it’s not getting it from sunlight, simply to stay alive and vibrant. And the bitter truth (so to speak) is that organic tea fields using organic fertilizers can’t, at least by today’s technologies and standards, give it enough energy to grow with maximum amino acid structure. It just doesn’t deliver enough nitrogen for the plant to develop the complex amino acids that give great matcha its unique and umami-driven taste profile.
That said, our farmers are hardly dumping industrial-strength fertilizers into their fields. They use very high-quality natural fertilizers (mostly fish meal and pure nitrogen), but they are not certified organic. The plant NEEDS this added energy, since it’s not getting it from sunlight.
So this is why purely organic matcha grown only with organic fertilizers is actually inferior to conventionally grown matcha: purely organic fertilizers simply don’t have enough stored energy to create these ethereal, umami-packed, new-growth leaves in the absence of sunlight.
HOW TO TELL GOOD MATCHA FROM BAD MATCHA
It’s very easy to tell good matcha from bad matcha once the package is open, but it’s impossible to tell just by looking at packaging, either online or in person. Packaging can be deceptive: always buy from a trusted source!
Once the package is open, you have a gigantic clue: color. Quality matcha should be bright, bright, BRIGHT green. Electric green. Bad matcha will be a dull green; some are even army green, others are downright yellowish. These colors are bad signs indeed: they mean that 1) leaves *other* than the youngest leaves have been used to increase volume, 2) the matcha was never stored properly (ie in freezers) and has now badly oxidized 3) the matcha contains stems and branches, or 4) most likely 1, 2, and 3. So color is the biggest immediate factor in assessing the quality of matcha.
Next: get up close to it, and take a deep, slow inhale through the nose. What does the aroma tell you? Does it smell fresh and inviting and vegetal, almost like freshly blended baby green vegetables? If so, you’ve got some good, sweet matcha. If it smells a little stale, a little dusty, a bit like old hay . . . that’s not so good.
Taste. This one is easy. After you’ve whisked your cup of matcha, does it taste good, or does it make you feel like spitting it out? Does it taste bitter or sweet (or neither)? Inferior matcha tastes unpleasantly bitter (there are those who would say that a good matcha should be pleasantly bitter, but we here at Breakaway Matcha are not among them). We prefer it to taste sweet, which is a result of the complexity of the amino acids in the tea. We certainly don’t add sugar or honey or agave or any sweetness to it; it should be naturally sweet. It should also have a great deal of umami (a brothy meatiness), which is an emergent property of the high amino acid content of great matcha.
Finish. It should have a long, pleasant finish that lasts a good 30 seconds, if not longer. Young vegetal notes should just sing on. This is the mark of a truly excellent matcha.
BEST SELLERS
Menu
-
B2B
-
Shopping Agent
-
Forwarding
-
Support
-
Brand Introduction
-
Login
Sign Out
-
Language English
-
Currency RUB
Language
Currency
Drag the image here, or
Click to upload
Tips: Only jpg, jpeg, png, webp
Scan the QR code and use your phone to take a direct photo search.
×
