Getting into matcha
without spending 40 euros.

The pattern repeats: someone tries matcha in a café, likes it, looks up how to make it at home and finds a shopping list of bowl, whisk, whisk stand, scoop, sieve and matcha. Forty-odd euros before the first cup. A good share of those people close the tab.

It is not necessary. Of those six things, two decide whether the cup comes out well; the other four are convenience. This guide separates them and warns about the two mistakes that ruin almost everyone’s first cup.

What you do need to buy

1. The matcha (and this is not where you save)

This is the one place where quality shows immediately and where saving money costs you. A culinary matcha made as usucha tastes bitter and flat, and the conclusion a beginner draws is not «I bought badly» but «I do not like matcha».

What to look for, in order of importance: a stated first harvest, at least twenty days of shading, organic certification with a control body code, and a vivid jade green. The detail is in the five signs of a genuine matcha.

On size: to start with, the 100 g tin works out far cheaper per cup than the 30 g one, and makes about 50 cups. If you drink it several times a week you will finish it before it oxidises. If you think you will have it once a fortnight, take a small pack even though it costs more per gram.

2. Something to measure with

Two grams is two grams. By eye, people overdo it, and too much matcha is the quickest route to bitterness. A kitchen scale that reads to the gram is enough. Failing that, a stainless steel measuring spoon costs €6.00 and does exactly that job: one level spoon, two grams, no thinking.

The traditional bamboo scoop (chashaku) is beautiful and part of the ritual, but it is not calibrated: every chashaku holds a different amount depending on how you load it. For learning the dose, steel is more useful.

What can wait

The chawan

The traditional bowl is wide and flat-bottomed, which helps the whisking. But any wide breakfast bowl does the same job for the first few weeks. What does not work is a tall narrow cup: no room to move the whisk, and no foam.

The chasen

This one needs nuance. The batidor de bambú with a hundred prongs makes better foam than any alternative, and it shows. But a three-euro electric milk frother gives a perfectly respectable foam, and so does a jar with a lid shaken hard. We have a whole guide on how to make matcha without a chasen.

That said: if matcha takes hold of you, the chasen is the second purchase you will want to make, and it is worth it.

The sieve and the stand

The sieve breaks up lumps before whisking; a fine tea strainer does the same. The ceramic stand extends the chasen’s life, but it only makes sense once you have a chasen.

The two mistakes that ruin the first cup

Mistake 1: water too hot

By far the most common. Water straight off the boil is at 100 °C, and at that temperature the catechins come out all at once: the result is bitter and harsh, however good the matcha.

The temperature for usucha is 70 to 75 °C. Without a thermometer two tricks work: boil and wait three to five minutes, or pour the water from one container to another, since each pour loses about ten degrees. From boiling, two pours leave you around 75 °C. We go into it in the water temperature guide.

Mistake 2: the dose, in both directions

Too much matcha gives a dense, bitter cup. Too little gives green water with barely any flavour, and the usual reaction is to add more next time and overdo it. Two grams to 60 to 80 ml with water, which is the usucha ratio; two grams dissolved in 30 ml of water and topped up with 150 to 200 ml of milk for a latte, because the fat in milk softens the bitterness and takes more concentration.

A third, smaller but very common mistake: not sifting. Matcha compacts in the tin, and tipped straight into water it makes lumps that never break up. Pushing it through a fine strainer takes ten seconds and it shows.

How to make it, in four steps

1. Sift 2 g of matcha into the bowl through a fine strainer.
2. Add a splash of water at 70 to 75 °C, about 30 ml, and work it into a smooth paste against the bottom. This is the step that prevents lumps.
3. Top up with the rest of the water and whisk in a zigzag, drawing a W, for about twenty seconds. Do not use circles: circles do not work air in.
4. Drink it within the first few minutes. The foam collapses and the matcha settles; cold and stood, it does not taste the same.

If you would rather start with a matcha latte, which is far more forgiving about temperature, the recipe is in the classic matcha latte.

A buying plan in three stages

Now: a 100 g ceremonial matcha and something to weigh with. With the bowl you already have and a small whisk or a milk frother, you are set for two months.

If after three weeks you are still making it: a hundred-prong chasen. It is the upgrade you notice most for what it costs.

Once it is a habit: a real chawan, a chasen stand and a chashaku. By then you know what you want and why. In the full kit the pieces are set out one by one.

If you do not know where to start

We have a five-question quiz that asks about your experience, what you like to drink and what you want to spend, and comes back with a specific recommendation and the reason for it. It takes a minute and it heads off first-purchase paralysis.