More and more people are learning what many in Japan have known for centuries: to get the full benefits of the green tea plant – the maximum healthy impact – you have to use the very best leaves and consume the nutrients in the entire leaf. That is exactly what you get with Matcha. It is definitely not your average green tea.

What is Matcha?

This Japanese tea has been known for centuries for its energy-boosting, mind-focusing, and metabolism-fuelling properties. It is the very high-quality, stone-ground powdered form of whole, select shade-grown Japanese green tea leaves. So, when you consume Matcha powder, you are actually consuming the whole leaf rather than just tea leaf-infused water. This way, you get the full nutrients of a very high-quality leaf. Additionally, Matcha has much less caffeine as compared to coffee. It’s also a healthy alternative to sugary drinks like bottled tea, soda and sports drinks. It has a very fine texture similar to baby powder and can be brewed either thick or thin depending on your personal preference. The taste of Matcha is smooth and mellow, and not at all bitter. Read more »

Very ancient, yet hugely popular still, there’s something about tea that defies simple explanation. Not thinking about it, means the tea drinker is missing out on so much joy. Just a little knowledge adds so much to the experience of drinking tea.

3000 BC onwards

The Chinese were undergoing agricultural revolution, and all the transformations in society that would build the infrastructure needed for such a crop. The world was ready for a popular beverage, so tea’s discovery came at exactly the right time. The question is, which way around did things happen. Did the infrastructure come arrive to cope with tea, or was tea something that was made possible because the infrastructure was there? An emperor was credited with discovering it, Shien Non Shei, who it is claimed discovered it by accident when a leaf fell into his freshly boiled water.

In the early days of tea, it was a drink that cost more than many a beverage and therefore was something exclusive to the wealthy merchants, business men, emperors, and nobles not to mention the upper levels of bureaucracy. Over time the price dropped as more became available. In the early ages constant war certainly served to keep the levels down, so that the number of people who aspired to drink tea would always outnumber those who could drink tea.

729 AD onwards

Green tea up till this point had been mostly confined to China, it was around 729AD that the Emperor gifted Buddhist monks some tea. Clearly taken by this drink the word got back to Japan via these monks and soon Japan was cultivating its own tea and developing it’s own particular varieties and traditions. Interestingly the iconic Japanese tea ceremony was also imported from China in a similar manner at a later date. Read more »

Matcha is premium green tea powder from Japan used for drinking as tea, as well as an ingredient in recipes. Matcha green tea powder is unique to Japan, and has been celebrated in the traditional Japanese tea ceremony for hundreds of years.

While green tea itself is known as being a healthy beverage, matcha goes even further. For instance, did you know that matcha is higher in Antioxidants than healthy foods like blueberries and spinach? Did you know that just one glass of matcha is equal to drinking 10 glasses of green tea for nutritional value and antioxidant content? This is true, and one of the main reasons is because when you drink matcha, the powder used to make it includes the whole tea leaf, rather than just drinking the brewed water like in regular green tea.

The high amounts of antioxidants, and specifically the catechins class of antioxidants found in matcha, are wonderful for a person’s health because they have been shown to reduce free radicals in the body, as well as have potential cancer-fighting properties.

Another health benefit of drinking matcha is the high level of Chlorophyll contained in the matcha powder. The Chlorophyll has been show to help remove toxins from the body. Match contains very high levels of Chlorophyll because it is grown in the shade rather than in direct sunlight. Read more »