A nice bottle of wine is a common accompaniment to a special dinner party. But before the party, you must select the perfect bottle. And before that bottle exists, much time and expertise were put into finding the right combination of grapes — taking into account soil conditions, climate, altitude etc. A well-trained sommelier can taste the time of year the grape was harvested and pinpoint its growth location. But wine isn’t the only product that receives such special treatment.
In Japan, a very similar process is done for all of our matcha. A matcha sommelier uses their expertise — lending back generations, to select the perfect group of leaves to create an intentional taste, an intentional experience. Creating a distinguishable matcha is a very labor-intensive, hand selected process. Our matcha comes from the Nishio, Uji, and Aichi prefectures, located in the middle of Japan, where mild climate, humid air, and fertile soil characterize the lands. These ideal growing conditions for high-quality Tencha have made them home to the finest quality matcha on the planet. The process is slow, but well worth it. Some teas stay as single origins, others are blended by a dedicated sommelier. The weather, fertilizers, and particular leaves of the plant (i.e. the tips of new leaves at the top of the plant or the slightly older leaves found lower on the plant), are taken into account and profiled. The lower leaves are typically a darker hue of green and have a stronger, more astringent flavor, while the newer leaves have a brighter color and are slightly sweeter.
It is a carefully selected blend of the finest new leaves that creates our Premium Ceremonial matcha. The more balanced, less subtle flavor profile of our Coffeehouse Ceremonial makes it a great matcha to be prepared with milk (such as in a latte). Our Kitchen Culinary matcha is blended using leaves slightly lower on the plant offering a stronger more robust flavor that maintains its matcha essence even once the heat is applied, such as in recipes for baked goods. Because quality is one of our greatest values, every matcha we offer meets our high standards, is delicious to the palate, and is designed for a specific use, based on its particular flavor profile. Buying matcha is a lot like buying wine, you have your table wines and the aged cabernets that you’ve kept in the cellar for years. Either way you look at it, there’s years of experience and a wealth of knowledge poured into every cup. We won’t steer you wrong.