Green tea and matcha powder

Not only it is a host in all our cups during all our meals and in the traditionnal tea ceremonies, but Japanese green tea is also turning in green many Japanese pasteries. Let’s discover this product that you should not miss while travelling in Japan.

Green tea everywhere…

In either school restaurants, small shops which serve some traditionnal plain meals in some industrial quantities, or on the contrary, in fancier restaurants the fashionable soft drink is green tea. The only thing which differs is the quality of it. And therefore is taste. For instance, in Waseda University’s school restaurant in Tokyo, dispensers offer green tea, hot water and fresh water… but green tea is not really tasty as there must be too much water in it. In many restaurants then, you will have to ask for fresh water if you want some, because they are going to serve you hot green tea*. And in others, you will find some taps delivering hot water and green tea powder you will have to shake to create your own drink. There again, you will have to ask for fresh water if you do not like green tea.

Fancy Green Tea

Reading the latest sentences, it is easy to deduce that green tea is a low cost product in Japan. Which is definitely wrong. Let’s examine wine, in France : there actually exist some low cost wine, which cost less than some euros, but it is also possible to find some « Grands Crus » which are very expensive… This is the same with green tea in Japan. The most expensive, the King of Green Masa super premium, cost more than 2500 dollars for one bottle of 750mL !

A special green tea : matcha

Matcha is a very special green tea as it is not from leaves that you are going to put into water to create you beverage. It is a powder that you have to blend into hot water to create a really think and bitter tea. It is also used while tea ceremonies where it is drank with some sweet pasteries made from azuki (red beans paste) to limitate its bitterness. Many international people and even Japanese people do not like this drink very much for the first time… a recurring joke in Japanese dramas being the grimaces people make when trying green tea for the first time.

Matcha is everywhere…

This matcha powder allows the use of the characteristic flavour of green tea in many products : in beverages but also in some pasteries. For instance, one of the favourite drinks in Japanese coffee shops, as Starbucks (or Veloce Café, Tully’s coffee…), is matcha latte : it is a drink close to a coffee latte, with milk and cream, but with green tea flavour. On reverse to the strong and bitter match tasted during tea ceremonies, it makes very soft and sweet drinks… as for the bubble teas with matcha flavour**. Added to these drinks, it is also possible to find Japanese pasteries with this flavour…which have all the same characteristic. All of them are green ! There are green cookies, donuts, cakes, cheese-cakes or even green kitkats ! And if you want to try to make this kind of pasteries, it is possible to make them everywhere in the world as you can buy matcha powder in many tea shops and find some recipes on internet.

A good way to try this peculiar flavour at home before going to Japan where you will have to taste it ! But remermber that even if you do not appreciate it, you should be able to survive… but it is true that if you like it, it will be easier for daily life and to meet Japanese people ;)

Marièke Poulat

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* To those who do not like green tea the magical sentence is « Sumimasen, O-mizu ga arimasu ka ? » « Sorry but do you have any water ? ».

** See the article on Bubble tea if you have not read it already and above all if you do not know this surprising beverage ^^