The traditional Japanese green tea, matcha, is an integral part of all Japanese celebrations. Matcha holds the honour of being the beverage of Zen monks, Japanese royalty, and Samurai. This mystic beverage blends ancient heritage with ample health benefits. It marks simplicity, purity, harmony and mental agility. Different plant varieties grown on different soils are carefully merged to produce unique matcha flavors. Though grown at numerous places across Japan, the Uji province in Kyoto has the ideal climatic conditions, soil and altitude for growing matcha.
Producing matcha is a long and complicated process. It begins by tilling the soil about two to five meters deep before planting seedlings. Yabukita, samidori and okumidori are the most preferred varieties of tea plant “Camellia Sinensis” for producing high grade matcha. Matcha is harvested just once a year, beginning from the month of May. Four weeks before plucking, the plants are covered with bamboo mats or black vinyl sheets. One sheet is added per week; a fourth sheet may be added to produce highest grade premium tea. This shading process cuts off sunlight from plants and retards the photosynthesis process. As a result, the tea leaves accumulate more chlorophyll and amino acids, and the plant grows softer and thinner buds. This imparts matcha its characteristic sweetness and subdues the caffeine’s bitter notes. The most tender shoots are carefully handpicked and steamed slightly to arrest the enzymatic action within the leaves. This stops further oxidation of the juices in the leaf and helps retain its antioxidants and nutrients. The dried leaves are cleaned and at this stage, they are referred to as aracha.
The leaves are then put through a mechanical separator which sifts out the veins, twigs and stems from the leaves. The fleshy middle part of the leaf is collected for further processing. These cut leaves are roasted to reduce the moisture content to as low as 4-5%. At this stage, the pure dried and roasted leaves are referred to as tencha.
In the final phase, the tencha is ground into a fine powder using mechanised granite grinding wheels. The word matcha literally means “rubbed” or “ground tea”. Tea leaves from different farms may be blended to achieve a stable taste and flavour. The ground leaves are sieved through a mesh filter to attain a powder like consistency. It takes a long time to ground the leaves to an extremely fine powder. It can take as long as one hour to produce just 30 grams of match tea powder. The powdered tea is finally ready for packaging. It is packed into airtight containers and refrigerated.