I discovered "matcha tea" in 2013 in a café in China where they served a matcha latte. It wasn’t great (too bitter and sweet), but at the same time this experience of a new type of tea sparked my curiosity.

I discovered that matcha tea comes from Japan and I entered this fascinating world... only to return to France and find matcha tea often bitter, not good, and not organic.

So I decided to find matcha tea premium and organic which comes from Japan, to offer a better experience to tea enthusiasts.

Où trouver le meilleur matcha ?

The result is this organic premium matcha from Japan. It comes from the largest organic matcha producer in Japan, with just over 200 organic farms on the island of Kyushu in southern Japan.

The main feature of organic premium matcha is that there is a cellar master (like in champagne) who selects the effective green tea leaves from the farmers at the cooperative, and he creates a blend so that the quality of the organic premium matcha remains consistent whatever the year.

Here I am with the tea master, who is also the brother of the company president. He is the one who selects the leaves and creates the premium blend.

In this video I am with his son and apprentice , Daishi-san shares with us his exceptional craft while answering some really interesting questions about the blending process and how to taste matcha from his perspective:

We selected and tasted some tea leaves from the April harvest. You can clearly see in the photo the difference between the leaves at the bottom, which are rather "yellow", and those at the top right, which are very green.

Why is premium matcha tea exceptional?

Speaking of harvest, for premium organic matcha tea there is only one harvest per year . This is the standard for premium organic matcha teas.

And this is completely the opposite logic to most matcha tea producers in Japan who cram their fields with pesticides and chemical fertilisers and do at least 2 to 3 harvests to increase yield.

In fact, in Japan 98% of the matcha tea produced is dedicated to the Japanese market and only 2% is reserved for export. And organic farms are really rare because very few Japanese are aware of consuming organic.

Having access to premium organic matcha tea means exceptional .

If you’re still wondering where to buy the best matcha tea, you should know that with Kumiko Matcha I only offer organic and natural products for three reasons:

• protect the environment
• protects the health of the entire Kumiko community, meaning from the farmer in the tea plantations to you, my customer
• represent a force for good in the world and be the change I want to see happen

It’s often retired women from the area who do the annual harvest to keep busy during this seasonal period (yes, in Japan culturally, elderly people have small jobs like taxi drivers... or tea pickers!)

Kumiko Matcha premium organic teas are covered for 4 to 6 weeks just before harvest under a black net that blocks 80% of the sun’s rays .

This is to promote the concentration of chlorophyll and the fact that the tea plant is forced to draw more energy and nutrients from the soil since it hardly gets any energy from the sun anymore.

And on top of that, it encourages the plant to grow plenty of new young shoots green and tender, "reaching for the sun". These are the leaves displayed for premium organic matcha tea.

After harvest, the whole tea leaves are dried and pre-cut by the farmers. At this stage, this "raw" tea is called aracha .

The aracha leaves are offered to the "tea master" who sorts and selects the best leaves to create his blend.

You have to put on a full lab coat to enter the production centre:

The green tea leaves are then steamed to stop oxidation.

Then they go through several machines that dry them, separate small plant particles, cut and re-cut, filter and re-separate particles… several times!

The final product of this process is the tea " tencha ", it looks like tea leaf confetti. It’s ready to go through the mill!

In this photo, I’m manually grinding the tea to reduce it to a very fine powder… matcha tea!

In fact, there are craftsmen specialised in making these matcha tea mills.

The mills are made of granite because it is a "cold" stone which won’t heat up too much from friction.

Craftsmen carve 2 granite stones that must fit together, with a hole in the middle to let the tencha tea leaves pass through.

The grooves are arranged so that the tea powder (matcha) is pushed outwards when the top stone rotates.

And so here are the mills for Kumiko Matcha:

Look, he puts the tea leaves in like this:

For most lower-quality matcha teas, the mills turn faster to achieve a higher yield of 50 to 60g per hour.

A mill must turn for 1 hour to grind the equivalent of a 30g tin of this premium organic matcha tea.

When the mill turns more slowly there is less heat generated, so the powder retains all the qualities of the raw product. Moreover, when the mill turns more slowly, the powder produced is even finer.

The powder is collected and then passed through a centrifuge equipped with a filter that only allows particles with a diameter of 100 microns or less to pass through (roughly the diameter of a human hair).

Several laboratory tests are carried out for quality and organic certification.

And finally, the premium organic matcha tea is packaged in 30g tin boxes. These tins are airtight and their composition provides better heat insulation. Plus, they are recyclable and reusable ! I recommend reusing them to store other matcha in sachets like Nakai matcha, for example, or even other ingredients in your kitchen.

The result of this intense and complex process is an exceptional product A matcha of powerful green with floral and umami flavours, produced organically to respect the environment, and delivering all the plant’s health benefits.

No more bitter, dusty matcha with a yellow colour that tolerates chemical fertilisers and pesticides.

Welcome to Kumiko Matcha France, eternal beauty from now on.

Tasting

A delicate powder with an intense jade colour. A rich, smooth taste with a delicious flavour. Initially vegetal and grassy, slightly astringent with a tannin sensation followed by a soft finish. Full of umami. It is not bitter like poor-quality matcha.

When whisked, this matcha produces a creamy foam. Ideal for daily consumption and smoothies.

The matcha tea preparation is made in a bowl with bamboo utensils.

Use the spoon to put the matcha into the bowl (1 to 2 bamboo scoops), then add a little cold water and whisk the mixture with the bamboo whisk until you get a fine, creamy foam.

Then add hot water (careful: not boiling). When preparing matcha tea, leave most of the bowl empty to admire the colour contrast during your own matcha tea ritual. Notice the texture and unique reflections of your matcha bowl, the bright jade green colour of the matcha.

Breathe in, and it’s ready. Enjoy your tasting.

Details

• the premium organic matcha
• net weight: 30 grams
• use 1 to 2 grams per cup
• organic farming, origin Japan
• ideally store in the refrigerator
• reusable and recyclable tin box