Premium Japanese Ceremonial Matcha Green Tea Powder - 1st Harvest HIGHEST Grade - USDA & JAS Organic - From Japan - Perfect for Starbucks Latte, Shake, Smoothies & Baking (3.53oz / 100g)USDA Organic

The media could not be loaded. I’ve tried several matcha powders before, but this one is by far the best I’ve ever had! The quality is incredible—you can immediately tell it's ceremonial grade by the vibrant green color and the fresh, earthy aroma when you open the bag.The taste is smooth, slightly sweet, and not at all bitter like some lower-quality matcha powders. It blends perfectly with just hot water or almond milk for a creamy latte, and I’ve also added it to smoothies and even baking.What I love is that it’s 100% organic, with no fillers or weird aftertaste. You can tell the company cares about purity and quality. It gives me a nice, clean energy boost without the jitters I get from coffee.I’ve already recommended this to a few friends, and they love it too. If you're looking for a delicious, high-quality matcha, this is definitely the one to try. I’ll be repurchasing for sure!

It provides stable energy without jitters, it’s my food medicine, I have a matcha in the early morning and another around lunch, makes me have sustainable energy for the remainder of the day!

Great quality, has the natural earthy taste

I’m licensed through the Urasenke school in Japan and have been practicing Chanoyu (Japanese tea ceremony) since I was a kid. (I've also studied tea and tea culture at the National Tea Culture institute in Hangzhou, China.)There’s a lot of misinformation happening around “ceremonial grade” matcha because social media influencers have made matcha a trend, leading to a global shortage in true ceremonial grade matcha. Ironically, this is not due to more people practicing the actual tea ceremony, for which ceremonial grade tea is required, but because they are using ceremonial grade tea in lattes, which is, quite frankly, a waste. I could go into a diatribe about the ethics of that, but instead I’ll just do an honest review. That’s all important context, though. I'm writing this review for people like me who are looking for matcha that we can use in the tea ceremony bow that our favorite brands are completely wiped out by the global matcha craze.First, if matcha is *actually* ceremonial grade, it will almost always have a gomei, or poetic name. This is essential for chanoyu. Second, true ceremonial grade matcha must be grown, harvested, processed, AND stored correctly, otherwise the quality quickly degrades due to heat, oxidation, light, etc.This tea is not ceremonial grade, even if it is first harvest, which is a shame. First harvest tea has traditionally been reserved for the ceremony, so even if this was ceremonial grade when this company purchased it, it doesn’t arrive as ceremonial grade, possibly due to packaging and storage. I’ve included a photo with an entry-level ceremony-grade matcha on the left and this brand on the right. You can see the difference in color. The yellowish hue for this brand gives it away that this tea has degraded. Keep in mind that the actual ceremony grade tea on the left is entry level — not super high quality. (It’s still a fantastic tea, though.) This is pretty much the lowest quality you’d get for true ceremonial tea, and yet it is still brighter and fresher than the tea on the right (the one being sold here).I whisked some of each up to compare, and this brand was…not good on its own. Now, it is a lot better than culinary grade matcha, but is it ceremonial grade? Not by a long shot. I’d be embarrassed to serve this to guests. And it really doesn’t taste like ceremony-grade matcha should taste AT ALL. But…if you’re getting this for lattes, well, that’s a completely different story. For latte-grade tea, this is an excellent choice. It’s hard to find latte-grade organic matcha, and usually, it’s a complete waste to use ceremonial grade tea in a latte anyway because true ceremonial grade is too delicate to stand up to the milk. (Side note: dairy binds to many of the beneficial compounds in tea, so if you want the polyphenols, EGCG, L-theanine, and other antioxidants, only use plant-based milks!)This matcha has a robustness and tannic sharpness perfect for standing up to a good oat milk or almond milk latte, so this is ideal for that. And despite the packaging and storage issues, this is a good value and good quality for organic lattes. As an actual tea practitioner, the global matcha shortage is hitting our community VERY hard. If this company really did buy the first harvest last year, it’s sad that they wasted it. Even so, I wanted to break down how this matcha really doesn’t represent ceremonial grade tea at all, but still is way better than a lot of latte-grade teas on the market. Plus it’s organic, so I still recommend it for lattes, even though it isn’t really usable for an actual tea ceremony.

I use it when needing a boost, I drank some by night time I stayed up all night long lmao

Good taste, good color, a decent size for the price. I made it almost every morning.And they’ll be getting it again.

Perfect

I've tried a wide range of matcha powders and I can really taste the difference. The best ceremonial matchas, when fresh, have a unique blend of flavors that somehow manage to be earthy, green, bright, bitter and sweet all at the same time - with just the tiniest note of chalkiness in the finish. Some of the culinary grade matchas are missing many of those notes and the worst taste like someone grabbed some weeds by the side of the road and threw them in a blender. Getting matcha at a teahouse is a mixed bag. Some of them use the good stuff. Others use cheap stuff and cover the lack of taste with sweeteners and milks - offering only a matcha latte.This matcha tastes somewhere in between the mid-range culinary matcha and the ceremonial matchas I've tried. It is probably not 'true' ceremonial grade (whatever that means - I'm not even sure there is a rigid definition. Maybe this matcha is used in ceremonies in small castles when second rate nobles visit.) But it is pretty good and at the price point it is probably going to become my matcha of choice. The flavor is not bitter. It is missing some of the brightness in the best matchas I've tried, but little bits of all the notes are present, just in a subdued form.I always scratch my head at friends of mine who put all their money into one expensive thing like a car. I have so many expensive tastes that I have to divide my discretionary funds among many areas. So I drive a Subaru (dependable, capable, economical) and choose where on the price-performance spectrum I want to be in my beer, wine, matcha, kiteboarding, barbequing, paragliding, music, electronics, and health purchases. This matcha is about where I land, although I keep a small tin of the really good stuff in the fridge for when I want a true ceremonial cup.Update: for everyday use, I've stopped using this matcha and switched to SEN CHA Everyday Matcha. Amazon sometimes has it. Costco sells it. It tastes better than this product and is even less expensive. I typically make a matcha latte using the SEN CHA, then I sprinkle a small amount of really good matcha powder on top. My end result is very tasty and not that expensive.