Who is behind this site
Ceremonial Matcha is an independent editorial project about ceremonial matcha, published from Spain by the editorial team of Ceremonial Matcha, which is one person, trained in gastronomy. We do not sign with a personal name and claim no individual credentials. The analyses published here are personal assessments carried out free of outside influence.
The site has no investors and belongs to no publishing group. It does have an ownership link with a matcha brand, Matcha Zen, set out below, which is worth keeping in mind when reading any recommendation. The only sources of income are the ones described on this page.
Sensory analysis methodology
Every matcha analysed is assessed with the same method, whether the product was bought, sent by the brand, or covered by a declared commercial relationship:
- Assessing the dry colour: 1 g on white paper by a window, in daylight and with no measuring instrument. We judge the shade (jade green against olive green), the brightness and the evenness.
- Assessing the dry aroma: opening the container at 20 °C and assessing the primary and secondary notes straight away.
- Solubility test: 1 g in 50 ml of water at 20 °C, shaken by hand, assessing how even the suspension is after 30 seconds.
- Standard preparation (usucha): 2 g sifted into the reference chawan (a neutral Shino), 70 ml of water at 70 °C ±2 °C, whisked with a 100-prong chasen for 20 seconds in Ws.
- Sensory assessment: six attributes on a 1 to 10 scale: colour of the tea, aroma, foam, umami (first impact), sweetness and astringency.
- Composite score: a weighted mean of the attributes assessed, with more weight on umami (×1.5) and foam (×1.2). The full formula and a worked example are on the methodology page.
Samples and relations with brands
Brands sometimes send samples for analysis. When that happens, the review says so with the note «sample provided by the brand». Receiving a sample implies no favourable review and no editorial commitment whatsoever. Brands that send samples get no advance sight of the content before it is published.
Where the analysis is of a product the site bought, nothing special is noted, because that is the normal case.
Declared conflicts of interest
There is one significant conflict of interest, declared openly:
Matcha Zen (teamatchazen.com) is a brand tied to this site’s editorial team. The analysis of Matcha Zen in the ranking and in the reviews comes from the same method applied to every matcha, but the reader needs to know about the relationship to judge the analysis properly. The score given (85/100) is our honest assessment, but the existence of the link is relevant information.
How we make money
This site sells nothing: no basket and no payment gateway, and the Shop section is a selection of affiliate links to Amazon. The income comes from three places:
- Amazon affiliation: links carrying an affiliate code appear in the Shop, in the Amazon Top 10 and in the guides where we recommend accessories: tools, chasen, chawan, chashaku, full kit, brewing, usucha, matcha without a chasen, water temperature and the dose calculator. If you buy through them, Amazon pays a commission at no extra cost to you. Every one of those pages says so on the page itself, next to the links, and not only here. Outside the Top 10, which is the list of the best selling matchas on Amazon with a link to their listing, we only link accessories, tools and a few Chinese leaf teas, never powdered matcha. Matcha Zen itself, which is also sold on Amazon, appears in that list without an affiliate link, so as not to earn a commission on a sale that is our own. We hold no stock and sell no tools, and we pick each product on the specifications its listing states and on its rating, not on the photos. When a listing does not give the figure that matters, we do not link it and we say so.
- Affiliation with experience platforms: the tea ceremony listings in the Kyoto and Tokyo guides link to activity booking platforms, currently GetYourGuide, with links marked as affiliate links. If you book through them, the platform may pay us a commission at no extra cost to you, and each of those pages says so next to the links. Only experiences that pass our ratings filter get in, and the commission changes neither the selection nor the order.
- The relationship with Matcha Zen: Matcha Zen (teamatchazen.com) is this site owner’s brand. When we link to its shop there is no commission involved: it is the same person. That link is the main reason this site exists, which is why it is declared here and wherever we recommend the product.
We do not sell favourable reviews, we accept no disguised sponsorship, and we publish no content we have been paid for without saying so.
Corrections and errors policy
If you spot an error in anything published here, report it from the contact page. Errors are corrected within 48 hours, and the article records the date and nature of the correction. Being open about mistakes is part of editorial credibility.