Where it came from
This site started from a specific frustration: how hard it is to find reliable information about ceremonial grade matcha. Most of what is available mixes marketing copy with technical information without separating the two, and a good deal of it repeats claims nobody has checked.
We built this site on a different rule: publish only what can be verified, declare every conflict of interest openly, and run sensory analysis with the same rigour anyone would apply to a wine or olive oil tasting.
One point of vocabulary, because it matters here more than in most markets. «Ceremonial grade» is the phrase the British market uses, and it is one of the least verified phrases in it: there is no regulated definition of it in the UK or anywhere else. Nobody certifies a matcha as «ceremonial». What can actually be verified is the harvest, the shading, the organic certification and the milling, and those are the things this site looks at.
The method
The tastings on this site are done by one person trained in gastronomy and sensory analysis, used to systematic organoleptic evaluation. We hold no specific certification in Japanese tea, because no international body issues one that carries real authority in this category. What we have is a consistent method, published in full, and a habit of correcting ourselves when we get something wrong.
The point of it
That anyone who wants to understand ceremonial matcha can find information that is accurate, unhyped and checkable. And that when they decide to buy a good one, they can do it on their own judgement.