Value Village ／ Before you come to Japan
This answer is a draft. It stays unpublished until legal review and source verification are complete.
Matcha went from tea ceremony to global café menu in a decade, and in 2024–25 Japan ran short of it. Visitors buying "matcha" in Japan face grades, prices and labels that do not map onto the word as used abroad.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Tencha | Shade-grown leaf (20–30 days of shading before harvest), steamed, dried, de-stemmed — the raw material |
| Matcha (抹茶) | Tencha stone-ground to powder (about 40 g per hour per mill) |
| Ceremonial grade | First harvest, finest grind; drunk whisked with water. ¥1,500–5,000 per 30 g |
| Culinary / latte grade | Later harvest, more astringent; stands up to milk and sugar. ¥500–1,500 per 100 g |
| Powdered green tea (粉末緑茶) | Ground sencha — not matcha; cheaper, brighter bitterness, often used in "matcha flavour" products |
| Main regions | Uji (Kyoto), Nishio (Aichi), Yame (Fukuoka), Kagoshima |
[Verify] Production figures with MAFF tea statistics; shortage reports with producer announcements (2024–25); caffeine figures with the Standard Tables of Food Composition.
Only ground tencha. Check the label for matcha (抹茶); "powdered tea" (粉末茶, funmatsu-cha) is powdered sencha. "Matcha flavour" sweets often contain little or none.
Its subtlety is lost under milk and sugar, and it costs several times more. Culinary grade is designed for lattes and baking.
Powder has enormous surface area and oxidises in weeks. Buy small tins, keep them sealed and cold, and finish them.
Since autumn 2024, purchase limits (often one item per person in shops; Ippodo capped online orders at 12 units per 60 days) and sold-out signs are common at Uji, Kyoto and Nishio shops. Department stores and smaller tea shops are less constrained.
A bowl of matcha contains more caffeine than a cup of sencha because you consume the leaf. Around 60–70 mg per 2 g serving — comparable to espresso.
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https://www.maff.go.jp/j/seisan/tokusan/cha/ocha.html
https://www.nihon-cha.or.jp/
https://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/syokuhinseibun/mext_00001.html
⚠️ Editorial note: the source URLs above were identified by search. Our working environment cannot reach go.jp domains, so the contents have not been checked against the text. Verify every source before publication and record who checked it and when.
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