Illustrated Japanese Culture
抹茶（まっちゃ）
Matcha is a fine tea powder made by grinding tencha: leaves grown under shade, steamed and dried without rolling. Whisked with water, the powder becomes the drink; it is also used in sweets and other foods.
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Funmatsucha is ground leaf tea, often made from sencha. Konacha consists of fine leaf fragments sifted out during processing and is normally strained. Instant tea is a dried extract that dissolves in water. Matcha consists of ground tencha: its particles disperse through the water rather than fully dissolving.
Colour, aroma, umami and the balance of bitterness and astringency help describe quality. Raw leaves, shading and blending affect the result. Product grades differ between makers and uses. Ippodo describes “ceremonial grade” as a vague marketing term used in the West; a stated suitability for thin tea, thick tea or food preparation is more specific.
The trade standard separately discusses tencha for food processing, including autumn tencha and moga tea. An ingredient made for food production can have different requirements from drinking tea. Sweetened drink mixes and desserts also contain ingredients beyond tea; read the product’s ingredient list.
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Put the powder in a tea bowl, add hot water and mix with a chasen, a bamboo whisk. A sieve helps break up lumps. Whisking disperses the powder through the water.
Usucha, or thin tea, has a lower powder-to-water ratio and is usually whisked. Koicha, thick tea, uses more powder and less water, mixed slowly into a dense drink. Ippodo’s example uses 4 g of matcha and 30 mL of water at 80°C. Recipes and foam styles vary between methods and tea schools.
Preparation methods produce different amounts of foam. Milk, sugar and cold preparations offer other ways to serve matcha, alongside its use as a food ingredient.
Matcha contains theanine, catechins and caffeine. Japan’s food-composition table lists 3.2 g of caffeine per 100 g of powder, equivalent to about 64 mg in 2 g. Actual intake depends on the product and the amount of powder used.
Air, heat, light and strong smells damage the powder’s flavour. Ippodo recommends an opaque, tightly sealed container away from heat and strongly scented foods, and suggests using an opened pack within about a month for best flavour.
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Tang-dynasty tea could be ground and boiled. Song tea drinkers whisked powder with hot water in a bowl; leaf infusion became characteristic of Ming tea drinking. Japan had tea before 1191. These earlier practices provide a background to modern matcha, whose shaded leaves and processing developed later.
Chinese powdered-tea drinking reached Japan by the late twelfth century. Accounts commonly associate its transmission with Eisai (栄西), a Buddhist monk who returned from China in 1191.
By the fifteenth century, Uji’s tea producers had support from the imperial court and the Ashikaga shoguns, Japan’s military rulers. Shading developed in the sixteenth century, changing the leaves’ colour and taste.
An archival view of tea picking beneath a honzu canopy; the photograph is undated.Medieval gatherings included contests to identify a tea’s origin. Sixteenth-century chanoyu combined drinking with meals, utensils and prescribed forms of hosting. The tea practitioner Sen no Rikyū (1522–1591) helped establish wabi tea, favouring simpler settings and utensils.
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From the seventeenth century, privileged Uji merchants sent tea annually to Edo for the shogunate.
Late-Edo financial difficulties and the loss of patrons in Meiji hurt Uji producers. Tea practice in girls’ schools brought new participants.
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Kyoto’s chronology dates the start of tencha mechanization to 1919. Drying equipment developed during Taishō and early Shōwa, with continuous belts replacing work at hand-operated drying hearths.
Left: Visitors at Fukubun’s 1925 Horii-type tencha dryer in 2025. Right: Three conveyor levels above the heat source in a tencha dryer. Diagram from Kyoto’s tea chamber.Kyoto’s tea chamber records wartime restrictions and matcha tablets made for military supply.
Kyoto recommended the cultivars Asahi, Komakage and Samidori in 1954. A two-layer covering made from synthetic fibres followed in 1971, adding a new method of shading tea plants.
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Some growers switched from sencha or gyokuro to tencha during Heisei (1989–2019). A 2024 agriculture ministry report records increased tencha production and processed-food demand.
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Nishio in Aichi expanded commercial tea production in Meiji and concentrated on tencha from late Taishō. Uji and Nishio remain recognized centres. The agriculture ministry’s fiscal-2025 overview also names Kagoshima, Kyoto and Shizuoka as major tencha-producing prefectures.
A 2022 agriculture ministry feature describes matcha in American café menus and confectionery. Demand has continued to grow: Ippodo reports rising tea prices as demand for matcha increases. NARO’s 2025 cultivation and processing guide for the Seimei cultivar in Kagoshima supports production for export.
Contemporary powdered-tea production also extends beyond Japan. In 2025, Hangzhou’s government described a Jingshan producer’s automated tea-making device, unveiled in 2024 and using local tea powder. Product names alone do not establish whether the leaves and processing meet the Japanese matcha definition.
Tencha is steamed, unrolled leaf tea grown under shade and dried. Once refined tencha is ground into a fine powder, it is matcha.
Shading changes the growing leaves and their flavour and colour. Grinding is the final physical step that reduces prepared tencha to powder.
Whisking disperses fine leaf particles in water, so the leaf is consumed. Infusion draws substances from leaves that are usually removed before drinking.
Uji supplied elite and shogunal customers, then faced the loss of those patrons. New tea students, mechanized drying, postwar cultivars and expanding food uses changed its market and production.
Matcha is finely ground tencha consumed with water; konacha is sifted leaf fragments usually strained out; instant tea is dried extract that dissolves.
Thin tea uses less powder relative to water and is usually whisked. Thick tea uses a higher ratio and is worked slowly into a dense drink; recipes vary.
Look for the intended use and descriptions of colour, aroma and taste rather than a supposedly universal grade. An opaque airtight container, kept away from heat and smells, protects flavour.
Nishio is another established centre; recent ministry information also identifies Kagoshima, Kyoto and Shizuoka as major tencha producers. Overseas uses include café drinks and confectionery.
Object photographs, historical images and reading sources are listed below.