Bring water to boil
Bright green in my black tea bowl
Worldly cares vanish
Great matcha that is very soothing with a wonderful balance of bitter and sweet. Pales in comparison to the Pinnacle – much more of a stark contrast between these grades than with this company’s grades of sencha, which are very different but not necessarily “better”. Still, I love this tea and am happy serving it to guests or consuming it on its own or even with food. A nice all-purpose matcha that whisks up nicely with 2g tea to 60-70mL water [Edited – I originally said 100mL… I don’t put that much water in my chawan; I’m just so used to using 100-150mL increments for my gaiwans and teapots and typed it out of habit].
I bring water just up to a boil, pour into a cha hai (I don’t have a bamboo ladle to portion water from an open pot), and transfer into a non-preheated chawan. I rinse with hot water, but with only a bit and it only makes the bowl warm, not hot. This seems to knock down the temperature right to where I like it when using one of my two heavier chawans after I whisk the tea. Comes out a bit too hot both for drinking and for holding the bowl properly in my thinner-walled, summer chawan so I do an extra cha hai transfer when using that one. This particular matcha seems to work better with water heated then cooled rather than brought up to a particular temperature, as I do for nearly all of my teas, leaving me preparing it without the impulse to use timers and thermometers – ultimately making this a far more relaxing tea experience for me than even some of my favorite relaxing teas that I can’t help but want to time or take temperature readings of.
Tasty and balanced with decent shelf life for a matcha. Still needs sifting and cool storage.
Preparation
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I should probably toss a note out there as to measurements. Typically one would use two piled chashaku scoops to prepare thin tea with 60-70mL water. Since scoops differ in size and sifted versus unsifted matcha have different densities and cohesiveness, this can range from 0.5g to 2g – that’s a pretty massive difference there! You get a good sense for how it ought to look in the bottom of your chawan after only a short while, but I do recommend weighing what your scoop tends to deliver at some point rather than just trusting it gives a 1g dose.
I should probably toss a note out there as to measurements. Typically one would use two piled chashaku scoops to prepare thin tea with 60-70mL water. Since scoops differ in size and sifted versus unsifted matcha have different densities and cohesiveness, this can range from 0.5g to 2g – that’s a pretty massive difference there! You get a good sense for how it ought to look in the bottom of your chawan after only a short while, but I do recommend weighing what your scoop tends to deliver at some point rather than just trusting it gives a 1g dose.