The essentials
To make a proper usucha you need just three things:
- Chawan (茶碗): the bowl the tea is made in. At least 10 cm across inside, so the chasen can move. Ceramic without a glossy inner glaze holds the foam better.
- Chasen (茶筅): the bamboo whisk. The most important piece of kit. Without it there is no foam. An 80 to 100 prong is enough for daily use. A 120 gives a finer foam.
- Chashaku (茶杓): the small bamboo scoop for measuring. A level chashaku is about 1 g. A 0.1 g scale works too.
The ones worth having
- Sieve (Furui, 茶漉し): a fine stainless steel sieve to break up lumps before whisking. It makes a visible difference to the final texture.
- Chasen stand (Kusenaoshi, 茶筅直し): a ceramic stand the damp chasen sits on so it dries keeping the curve of its prongs. It extends the whisk’s life significantly.
The sieve is the one item on this list where the market lets us down. This guide asks for a 0.15 mm mesh, and on Amazon not a single kitchen strainer in the 8 to 15 euro range states its mesh size: they say fine mesh and leave it there. The ones that do give a figure stop at 40 mesh, around 0.42 mm, nearly three times as coarse. The only one that states 0.15 mm is a laboratory sieve, the PATIKIL 100 mesh (0.15 mm) sieve in 304 steel (see the price on Amazon), 304 stainless steel and 10 cm across, which sits exactly on the rim of a chawan. It costs more than a strainer and does the job a strainer claims to do.
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The optional ones
- Hishaku: a bamboo ladle for the water. Only relevant for a formal ceremony with a kama.
- Natsume or Chaire: a lacquered container for the matcha during the ceremony. For everyday use, the original airtight tin is enough.