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.
- Frother: only for matcha latte; it does not make usucha. Of the four in the selection, the two newest are the Morpilot 240 ml electric frother jug (see the price on Amazon), which heats the milk and stops at 65 °C, and the Bonsenkitchen rechargeable handheld frother (see the price on Amazon), handheld and rechargeable over USB-C. All of them are in the shop.
- Glasses and mugs: for latte, not for usucha. Eight with capacity and material on their listing. The practical ones: ecooe set of 2 double wall glass mugs, 350 ml, Creano set of 2 tall double wall glasses, 400 ml, Le Creuset 400 ml stoneware mug, Cerise and Yundu set of 4 matte ceramic 295 ml cups with saucers. The best designed: BUCOMTU set of 6 glass can cups with bamboo lids, KONZEPT set of 6 ribbed 320 ml glasses, Ava Nord set of 4 blue reactive glaze stoneware mugs and Purity Style tall 500 ml hand painted mug. These and the rest are in the shop, split into glasses and mugs.