A PLEA FOR THE TEA
Japan’s matcha is the drink of the moment — and we’re already ruining it
Japan’s matcha is a wonder — and we’re ruining it
Toronto’s Roncesvalles Village is the sort of urban neighbourhood where three health-food stores can coexist within five blocks, where the place that does espresso for $4 a pop is busier than the Tim Hortons, and where residents have a choice of two butcher shops for ethically raised meat.
This where food-conscious middleclass Canadians take their first slurps and nibbles of emerging trends. In Roncesvalles, the highest grade of Japanese matcha tea is sold-out at the local location of Davids Tea. The best you could do last week was a lowergrade matcha — costing a little more than $20 for a tiny 50-gram pouch — and put your name on a waiting list for the next shipment.
Davids Tea has gone all-in on matcha, a vibrant green, powdered Japanese tea that yields a potent, concentrated brew. Grassy, creamy and bittersweet, you could think of it as the espresso of tea. The Montrealbased tea retailer now offers everything from the delicate, higher-end “Ceremonial” matcha down to instant, flavoured versions and a travel mug that you shake to mix the tea, which cleverly does away with the need for a traditional bamboo whisk.
“A few years ago we identified the opportunity to make matcha more accessible to the masses,” says Kim Wiseman, head of customer engagement for Davids Tea. “We saw the popularity was growing.”
Health- and food-conscious Canadians are gradually moving some of their break-time focus from coffee back to tea, and as a sub-trend within that shift, matcha madness is whipping to a froth. Scan food-related publications and you’ll soon encounter matcha desserts, matcha lattes, matcha smoothies and, here and there, a plain old bowl of matcha. For a glimpse of what the near-future may hold for Canadian matcha fanatics, Fast Company magazine recently reported that the pride of Nishio, Japan, is rapidly painting the Big Apple green, having been spotted everywhere from New York Fashion Week to a dedicated matcha bar serving up cinnamon spice hemp milk matcha lattes in (where else?) Williamsburg.
While you're at it, you’re likely to hear all about matcha’s supposed health benefits before a word about its unique flavour. Matcha is apparently full of antioxidants. Contrary to popular myth, these are not proven to prevent cancer. Some research has argued that antioxidants actually cause more cancer than they prevent. But people still believe, and that’s another story.
In Japan itself, matcha is thought of as a luxury and an excuse for quiet contemplation. When you boil it right down, the famous Japanese tea ceremony is all about taking matcha in its dry powdered form, whipping it with water until it bubbles, and passing it around. In the end you’re ingesting ground-up tea leaf dissolved in water, hence the coffee-like jolt of wakefulness. When properly prepared, matcha is as thick as cappuccino. The elusive, even thicker “koicha” style goes down like a milkshake.
In North America, you’re more likely to have matcha served in an actual milkshake than by itself, as plain tea. “Why are you seeing hundreds of pictures of [matcha] lattes instead of tea just whisked in a bowl?” asks Shabnam Weber, owner of Ontario's The Tea Emporium and a board member of the Tea Association of Canada. Because a matcha latte is tasty, she says — and easy.
As our continent’s propensity to mess with the foods of the world gets applied to matcha, it’s difficult for tea lovers not to feel as though we’re wrecking what could have been a nice little treat — like how Starbucks ruined Italian coffee and the nonQuebec parts of Canada over-tweaked poutine. A matcha latte is well and good, but what novices may be missing, Weber argues, is meditating on the tea in its perfection and completeness. “Just take those few moments to focus on whisking the matcha and be present in the moment,” she says.
Weber concedes there are valid reasons why Canadians are consuming matcha in the form of lattes and cookies. For one thing, people brought up in Canada are intimidated by the bitterness of pure matcha. “It’s our Western palates — it’s just the way we are,” she says. For another, the authentic process can be intimidating. “Most people have a blender at home. Maybe they don’t have a bamboo whisk.”
For a refresher on whisking and sipping, I took some Davids Tea matcha samples to visit with tea master Reid So Shin Burridge, who teaches eager students his solemn art in a lovely little room in a midtown Toronto house (the “So Shin” part is his tea name, conferred upon his completing his training in Kyoto; it’s hard to translate but it’s something about the true heart of the way of tea, as he has learned it).
Davids Tea’s standard recipe for matcha sounds too weak for Burridge. “Oh no. I wouldn’t like that,” he grimaces. He’s not impressed by the two lower grades of their tea, either — not bright green or sweet enough, he says. But the new “Ceremonial Matcha” meets with his approval. For comparison, he whips up an invigorating little bowl from his own stash, which he sources online. A bowl of Hibiki-an tea is sublimely robust, earthy and sweet. It also costs around $40 for just a 40-gram tin. Most Canadians won’t be ready for that price point for tea quite yet.
Just as Starbucks introduced millions to the experience of espresso, Burridge figures easy-to-swallow matcha products for the masses could serve as a gateway to the genuine article. In Japan, it’s worth noting, the tea ceremony happily coexists with matcha candies and other frivolities. Burridge seems pleased when I leave behind some instant flavoured matcha sachets for him to try, in vanilla, mocha and mint. The tea master settles the whole issue of matcha authenticity with a Zen-like shrug. “This is this,” he says, sweeping his arm to indicate the ceremonial tea room. Then, gesturing at the flavoured matcha pouches: “That is that.”