How Matcha Is Made: From Shaded Leaf to Stone-Milled Powder

Most green tea is picked, dried and packed. Matcha takes a longer road — five deliberate steps, none of which can be rushed. It's the reason good matcha tastes the way it does, and the reason it costs what it does.

1. Shading

For around 40 days before harvest, the tea plants grow under woven shades. Starved of direct sun, the leaf slows down and floods itself with chlorophyll and amino acids — which is what draws out matcha's deep green colour and sweet umami and softens bitterness. Many producers shade for only 20 days; the longer method is more expensive and tastes it.

2. Hand-picking

Each spring, only the first tender leaves — the first flush — are picked, during a short window. These young leaves hold the highest nutrients and the smoothest flavour. One short harvest a year is all the best matcha allows.

3. Steaming

Within hours of picking, the leaves are steamed. This locks in the bright green colour, preserves nutrients and stops oxidation — without it, the leaf would ferment toward black tea. Speed here is everything.

4. Drying to tencha

The steamed leaves are cooled and gently dried, then their stems and veins are removed, leaving pure leaf flakes called tencha. Tencha is the true raw material of matcha; everything before this step exists to produce it well.

5. Stone-milling

Finally, tencha is ground in granite stone mills turning slowly, counter-clockwise. Each mill produces just about 40 grams an hour. Grind faster and friction heat scorches the powder, dulling colour and flavour. The slowness protects the fine, silky particle that lets matcha suspend in water instead of sinking.

One hour of milling for forty grams. Slowness isn't the cost of quality — it is the quality.

That's the whole journey, seed to ceremony. See the full five-step craft, or explore the grades it produces.