In the Japanese tea industry, matcha has generally been considered to be divided into two main quality standards.
One is whether it is for tea ceremonies and the other is whether it is for other purposes.
In our store, we have divided the standards into three categories to make it easier to understand.
1) Ceremonial grade
The highest quality matcha available for use in the tea ceremony.
It is limited to the first harvested tea leaves and the supply is very limited.
Its bright green color makes you feel as if you are surrounded by a tea plantation when you drink it, and you can enjoy a relaxing and luxurious feeling.
You can fully enjoy the color, taste, and aroma of either thick or light tea!
You can say "Otemae-yo matcha" in Japanese.
2) Premium grade
Well-balanced in taste, color, and aroma, it provides a strong taste of matcha.
Depending on the producing area, we limit ourselves to first- or second-harvest matcha of good quality.
It can be used for various purposes such as light tea and matcha latte.
We use this premium grade matcha for lattes in our store.
3) Latte grade
The body of the flavor is strong and you can feel the wildness of the tea leaves.
Better to drink with milk than straight.
The quality is suitable for making sweets that require a large amount of matcha due to its reasonable price.
The matcha cookies we make at our sister store use latte grade.
Notice the colors
The three matcha photos above were taken without filter processing of the matcha itself.
If you slide the photos in order from the top to the bottom, you will see that the color tone goes from a beautiful bright green to a yellowish hue as you move to the bottom photo.
The easiest way to judge quality is to use this coloration as a standard.
