How to Make the Best Matcha Breakfast Drink

A matcha drink can be cold brewed for an instant breakfast. This is a fast and easy way to get a quick dose of healthy green tea catechins!

Maybe you think you don’t like matcha green tea. Or you want to try it and don’t know where to start. You don't need to be an advanced tea drinker to enjoy the benefits of matcha.

Once you read this, you may discover a love for matcha green tea. You'll learn how to make a delicious matcha breakfast drink. It's easier than you think!

There are plenty of ways to enjoy matcha tea recipes. What’s so awesome about this green tea powder is just that – it’s a powder. This makes it easy to add to many different foods and beverages. Matcha is a popular ingredient in desserts, ice cream, and lattes.

In this post, I'll teach you a little bit about matcha and show you how to make a simple matcha drink recipe for a morning infusion of Vitamin C and a mega-dose of antioxidants. At the end of the article, I've listed some of the best places to buy matcha online.

What Is Matcha Tea?

This Japanese style of tea is gaining popularity worldwide because of its densely packed nutrients. How is this different from other tea made from the Camellia sinensis plant?

Matcha green tea is a powdered tea from Japan and is used in the traditional Japanese tea ceremony – Chanoyu.

When the new shoots on a tea bush have two or three leaves in the Japanese tea garden, they are shaded from sunlight for several weeks. This shading increases the plants' production of chlorophyll – hence the intense green color of the tea.

The leaves are steamed before they’re dried. During the drying process, all the stems and veins are removed and the Tencha leaves, as they are called, are ground into a very fine powder in a stone mill.

When you drink matcha, you are drinking the actual leaf, not just an infusion of the leaf. This is why it is so rich in nutrients.

Related:

• What Is Matcha?
• A Simple Guide to Japanese Green Tea
• Matcha Green Tea Latte
• How to Make Matcha Without a Whisk
• The Best Ceremonila Grade Matcha

Other tea-growing countries produce matcha, but not with the same quality. The Japanese have been producing matcha for over 1,000 years and have elevated it to a fine art. They still make the best matcha green tea available today. When you are buying matcha green tea, be sure it says it’s from Japan to ensure you are buying the highest quality.

Tips to Cold Brew Matcha Green Tea

Traditionally matcha is drunk hot, but you can also cold brew it, which is what we're going to do here.

• A good grade of matcha is bright green, indicating freshness. It should not be a khaki color green.

• Buy organic if you can.

• Press the powdered tea through a sieve before mixing. This will reduce clumping and make mixing easier. Especially helpful with cold brewing.

• Buy Japanese matcha.

• Use about ½ teaspoon matcha to ½ cup of water to start. For hot brewing, use 160-170°F (71-77°C) water temperature.

• Combine the matcha with a small amount of water first to blend into a paste. Then add the remaining water.

• Whisk briskly with a quick back and forth motion to create frothing. You can also use an electric frother.

• Traditionally a bamboo whisk and bowl are used for whisking and frothing.

• Always buy high-quality matcha.

• Matcha comes in 3 grades: ceremonial, classic, and cafe or kitchen. Buy the best you can afford.

Matcha Drink Recipe

Benefits of Drinking Matcha

One of the secrets of the Zen monks was drinking matcha green tea. It helped them stay calm and alert during long stints of meditation. Because you are consuming the entire tea leaf, you benefit from higher antioxidants, most notably EGCG, higher caffeine, and higher theanine levels.

The nutritional goodness of matcha green tea is plentiful:

• EGCG: or Epigallocatechin gallate is a catechin, a form of antioxidant. Many scientific studies have been done to determine the effect of EGCG on human health. Some studies show the positive health benefits of EGCG against cancer while others are inconclusive.

• Promote Immunity: Polyphenols of many types are abundant in tea and help promote immunity to foreign pathogens. Source

• Cancer Prevention: Where tea does help in cancer prevention is by mitigating free radicals, giving rise to the development of abnormal cell growth. The abnormal cells can turn cancerous. Tea alone will not prevent cancer, but combining it with a healthy lifestyle and healthy eating may certainly help. Source

• Matcha Green Tea: Provides 30 times more Vitamin C than an infusion of whole leaf green tea. The protein and calcium levels are also higher in matcha green tea.

• Weight Loss: Studies have shown that tea does increase your metabolic rate of burning calories. The catechins in tea help turn fat into energy by increasing your energy expenditure.

• Satiate Hunger: The book Cancer Hates Tea references a Swedish study that found the EGCG's in green tea boosted the gastrointestinal hormone cholecystokinin. This is the hormone that tells your body you are satiated - or you've had enough to eat! The effects can last up to two hours.

What is a Catechin?

The words antioxidants, polyphenols, and catechins are thrown around a lot when talking about tea benefits. But what are they exactly? And why should you care about them?

• Catechins are found primarily in green tea. While converting green tea into black tea, the catechins are converted to theaflavins during the oxidation process.

• Catechins and theaflavins are subcategories of polyphenols. Polyphenols are a broad category.

• Foods with high levels of naturally occurring polyphenols are fruits, vegetables, and tea.

• A polyphenol-rich diet is associated with a decreased risk of chronic diseases. Source

• Polyphenols are responsible for the anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties of foods. Source

• Polyphenols are a type of antioxidant. Antioxidants prevent oxidation which contributes to cellular damage.

This is not to say that matcha has higher catechins than other green tea. In some studies, it doesn't. Because you consume the entire leaf ground in a powdered form, you are ingesting much higher amounts of catechins than you would from simply infusing the tea and discarding the spent leaves. Source

Where to Buy Matcha Green Tea

I buy my matcha from the online tea shops listed below. These retailers only sell quality matcha green tea.

Look for matcha that's not bitter and has a clean taste. It may seem a bit pricey, but you always want to buy quality matcha. Some shops only sell matcha green tea. When that is their sole focus, it tells me they must really know their matcha.

I have also bought matcha green tea from The Tea Spot and the ceremonial grade from Adagio Teas. Both have excellent Japanese matcha tea.

• MatchaSource: Matcha tea comes in different grades. Alissa White is the Founder of Matcha Source, an online retailer of premium matcha tea and specialty utensils for preparing and enjoying matcha. This shop focuses strictly on matcha, from ceremony grade to kitchen grade and everything in-between.  MatchSource teas are hand-picked by the Yahagi River in Japan.

• Material Matcha Uji: Material Matcha Uji is another shop specializing strictly in matcha. They craft some of the highest quality matcha green tea in the world. Their aim is for purity. If you love matcha, this is one of the best shops to buy matcha tea online. Material Matcha works directly with small local farmers, favoring quality over quantity. Their tea is one-of-a-kind and extremely rare. Less than 100kg is produced every year, bringing a grade of loose green tea that has previously never been brought outside of Japan.

• Adagio Teas: Specializes in an expansive variety of loose leaf teas, including matcha. They source directly from the artisan grower. The teas I have tried are always fresh and have a superb flavor. I've enjoyed their Uji matcha from Uji, Kyoto. It is a ceremonial-grade Spring-harvest Matcha. Adagio depends heavily on reviews, and this tea has some very high review scores.

• The Tea Spot: Handcrafted teas and innovative Steepware. They specialize in gourmet loose tea with handcrafted, signature blends, and single-estate full leaf teas. You will find a large variety of health-focused blends. The company was founded in 2004 by Maria Uspenski, a cancer survivor drawn to the health benefits of whole leaf tea during her recovery. Her message is simple and powerful: tea in its freshest form renders premium flavor and unmatched health benefits.

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