It takes an entire year to grow, harvest and make powder of the plant that dissolves in seconds when expertly whisked into hot water. This is the paradox of matcha: a product both painstakingly coddled and voraciously consumed, sacred and utterly ubiquitous.

Matcha’s sacred history

To appreciate the craze, it’s helpful to understand context. Ceremonial matcha, the highest grade available, is made from the youngest green tea leaves and is grown in shade to preserve colour, flavour and nutrients. It is prized for its most vivid colour and smooth, sweet-umami flavour. These leaves are meticulously hand-plucked, then immediately steamed to halt oxidation, dried, and very slowly stone-ground into a fine powder. As its name suggests, ceremonial grade matcha is meant for tea rituals, with its high price a direct reflection of its higher purpose. For beverages like lattes, daily grade is most practical, while culinary grade is reserved for cooking and baking, as its bolder flavour can be easily balanced with other ingredients. Jonathan Kemeny, chef-owner of Kitsu Dining, a private fine-dining experience in Toronto, and who just started working on a new cooking series with Padma Lakshmi, prefers to flex its bitter, savoury notes and eye-catching colour in delicate matcha desserts, like cakes, custards and creams. The reason: simple chemistry.

Long before the pricey matchaccino, matcha first appeared in China with the Tang and Song dynasties, when the tea was pressed into bricks for easy travel and storage, then roasted, ground and whisked with hot water. In Japan in the 1100s, Zen Buddhist monks drank matcha for more tranquil and focused meditation. This evolved into Japan’s tea ceremony, called chanoyu, which crystallized the preparation, serving and drinking of matcha into a sacred ritual. Still observed around the world, tea ceremonies are moments of mindfulness, meant to celebrate the beauty in simple, everyday routines and to show respect for the purity and harmony of nature.

From ritual to modern craze

The dichotomy of matcha is its yin and yang: a deeply traditional, intentionally laborious, and uniquely special product now found in both Kyoto tea gardens and candy aisles. The global market for matcha was estimated at US $4.3 billion in 2023 and is projected to grow to US $7.4 billion by 2030. Matcha has been a staple in food and beverage for decades now, helped along by trend hunters in the West drawn to the chic minimalism of Japanese culture and its intriguing ingredients (see also the rise of ramen, yuzu, mochi, and miso). Not to be outdone, the wellness industry has embraced this plant-based, functional food. While some health claims tend toward the wild, limited research suggests antioxidant-rich matcha may improve heart health, metabolism, and cognitive function. Many devotees claim they converted from coffee for matcha’s smooth, sustained energy and focus, and fewer jitters.

Matcha may, in fact, transcend trend. Its rich history, nuanced flavour profile—at once grassy, nutty, sweet and savoury, at times astringent, bitter and earthy—and striking hue make it captivating. Its ability to deliver peace and well-being makes it transformative. Finally, the right ingredients and preparation can make it utterly delicious.

As a grade five student, Kemeny took his first sips of matcha when a class project culminated in a tea ceremony hosted by guests from the local Japanese cultural centre. He can still remember the powerful, bitter taste, which was a shock to his young palate. “Do I have to finish it?” he thought to himself. Redemption came decades later in Paris, when he watched a Japanese chef submerge a dark chocolate French macaron in bright green pancake batter. “It was 2010, and matcha hadn’t exploded yet,” he recalls. “This was something innovative and honestly kind of irreverent—a mash-up of ‘new’ Japanese with classic, sometimes stuffy French ingredients.” The pancake, he says, was light, fluffy and slightly bitter, spectacularly balanced by the molten macaron inside, which on its own would be very sweet. He’s still thinking about it 15 years later. “It was transcendent.”

The sweet science: How desserts unlock matcha’s flavour

Kemeny’s pancake revelation is grounded in this chemical truth: sugar and fat are two excellent flavour carriers. “You don’t want to heat either of them too much, which is in line with how you would treat matcha,” he explains. “Many baked goods—custards, ice creams, cakes and crepes—are babied at gentle temperatures.” Savoury cooking, on the other hand, can strip all the goodness from matcha. “Volatile temperatures, whether it’s from cooking or boiling water, will accentuate its bitterness, kill the flavour, kill the colour and any health benefits,” Kemeny says. Plus, he adds, there are many more efficient ways to achieve bitter and umami notes in cooking that matcha wouldn’t be a chef’s first choice.

Sweet applications are a better match for matcha and are much more common. Think creamy swirled milk-based matcha drinks, grassy green cross-sections of pastries, or an expertly scooped sphere of jade ice cream. In his kitchen, Kemeny prefers to fold it into classic, simple cakes, like madeleines and financiers. As does Dominique Ansel, father of the Cronut, the viral croissant-doughnut collision of 2013 that had lineups snaking out of his eponymous Greenwich Village bakery in New York City. Ansel showcases matcha as one of the flavours in his famous mini madeleines. “These are perfect vehicles for matcha, infused into luxurious textures of butter and eggs,” Kemeny says. “The cakes’ sweetness perfectly balances the bitterness and the colour comes through. In baking, there are far fewer opportunities to achieve that vivid green. Pistachio gets close, but it’s more pastel.” 

At his bakery in Singapore, famed pastry chef Cedric Grolet’s Matcha-Raspberry Cake swirls grassy jade with hot fuchsia pink. Matcha and red berries just make perfect sense together—Kemeny makes a towering matcha crepe and strawberry cake to play on this beautiful contrast. One of the most striking examples of sweet matcha might just be from Amaury Guichon, a French-Swiss pastry chef renowned for his otherworldly designs. He channels matcha’s colour in his Lily Pad, an incredibly lifelike sculpture built with green cake, mousse and ganache, among many more painstaking elements, as though stolen from, or returned to, nature.

Matcha behind the bar

Matcha is ubiquitous in beverages, to be sure, and it goes beyond the barista. “Matcha makes sense in cocktails too—the superfine powder is so easy to incorporate,” Kemeny says. “Mixologists are chemists in search of just the right balance. Matcha’s bitterness and umami are so well-suited to sweet, fruity and herbal drinks.” 

Some ways to raise a toast include matcha liqueurs like La Matcha, an intensely green tea blend of Uji-grown tea, Osaka sake, and molasses to balance the bitter; matcha-infused sakes like Yamamoto Matcha Omoi Green Tea Dream; or a sipper of Mizu Green Tea Shochu, a traditional 70-proof shochu made from harvested barley, black koji rice, and green tea leaves. This is a richly aromatic and bold libation.

From café to cocktail culture, French patisserie to the grocery aisle, matcha fever has led to global shortages that have put incredible pressure on Japan’s tea industry. It’s difficult to square matcha’s time-honoured, time-consuming production with today’s frenzied consumption. The persistence of matcha in luxury desserts and lattes proves that consumers value an ingredient whose worth is derived from its history and its unmatched, complex flavour.