After I made a resolution to drink Matcha every day I tried countless brands from every imaginable Google search. If you’re reading this, you have likely noticed the 18,500,000 results that pop up when searching for what brand of Matcha to try. Almost all of them are crap. I’m not kidding you. It’s like anything else that becomes a panacea, all the profiteering sharks start swimming closer and closer to the top of the search engine. What you will find are people with no true interest in tea, acting as middle men for the cheapest place that they can buy Matcha from, repackaging what they could scavenge onto a slick webpage with false reviews. You end up paying upwards of $40-120 for a 29 gram bag of olive drab garbage. You then conclude that you hate Matcha.
Sound like a scam? In a way, it is kind of a good deterrent for those of us who are searching for really good tea. Good tea is in fact a limited resource! It reminds me of what locals think of Bourbon street in New Orleans when I lived there. Bourbon Street is like a magnet for all of the unsavory elements that you’d rather not have walking about the rest of the French Quarter. I have talked to a lot of people who honestly thought they had tried good Matcha that I have made a bowl of tea for who immediately tell me it’s nothing like what they have sitting next to their vitamins at home.
The truth is, Asians like and drink their tea. There are entire shopping malls in China dedicated to just tea. I have been to some that specialize in just a few varieties of single teas. I’m talking about 4-5 stores in a row that all have the same damn tea, and they are all in business. Asians spend a great deal of time and money on tea. If a European or American wants really good quality tea, they have to know what they are looking for and be willing to spend a little more to get it. We have visiting doctors from China who come on an exchange program with the hospital I work for. They all bring their own tea with them if this tells you anything. We literally get the floor sweepings from a few years ago here for the most part.
Tea, unlike wine, has an expiration date. In order to have all of the constituents intact that comprise both the flavor and health benefits of tea you really should be drinking this years crop that was packaged/ground no more than 3 months ago. It’s no wonder that most people equate “green tea” with the pale urine colored water that they get at their local all you can eat Chinese buffet. Or, with the high-fructose filled bottled power drink from the gas station. Neither of these are tea.
As far as expensive…well, relatively. How much is a latté from Starbucks or a decent glass of Cabernet from a restaurant? Matcha is cheaper. My everyday Matcha that I love is less than $10 per 30 grams (including the hefty shipping fees from Japan.) If you follow my lead you can be incorporating the very best tea into your life and not giving your money away to someone who is taking advantage of your interests in better health.