Three weeks in the shade, then stone ground
Ceremonial matcha from Kagoshima, sold by the harvest. Thirty grams is about fifteen bowls, which comes to around €1.65 each.
Why it is that green
Shading is the whole trick. Cover the plant for three weeks before harvest and, starved of light, it makes more chlorophyll and more theanine to compensate. That is where the colour comes from. It is also where the sweetness comes from. The same leaf grown in full sun is a different drink.
This one is from Kagoshima, in the south of Japan, spring 2026 harvest. It is stone ground to order, which matters more than it sounds. Matcha starts losing its aroma the day it is milled.
The tin
Kagoshima, spring 2026. Shade grown, stone ground to order. Sweet, vegetal, with a savoury finish.
Ceremonial Grade Matcha
€25,00
€21,25 on a four-week subscription.
Origin Kagoshima
Harvest Spring 2026
Tin 30 g, about fifteen bowls
How to make a bowl
Two grams, sifted. Water at eighty degrees. Hotter than that and the theanine that carries the sweetness begins to break down, and what you taste instead is the bitterness. Sixty seconds, whisked.
One.
Sift
Two grams through a small strainer, straight into the bowl. It looks fussy and it is the difference between a smooth bowl and lumps you cannot whisk out later.
Two.
Whisk
Sixty seconds. We whisk in a W rather than a circle, because the foam it builds that way holds for minutes instead of seconds. Keep the chasen off the bottom of the bowl or you will break the tines.
Three.
Drink it warm
A bowl this size cools fast, and cold matcha tastes flatter than warm matcha. It is meant to be finished in a few minutes, not nursed.
There is more to it than this. Water, storage, the difference between usucha and koicha. We wrote that down in a short guide, at guide.niahmatcha.com.
What you need
A bowl wide enough to whisk in, a chasen, and something to keep the chasen in shape between bowls. The scoop is optional. A heaped teaspoon is close enough to two grams once you have done it a few times.
We serve it too
NIAH is a brunch café on Korte Molenstraat in The Hague. What is in this tin is what goes into the lattes at the bar, which is how we know it holds up in milk as well as it does in water.
We open at nine. Order online and you can pick it up here for free, usually the same day.
Korte Molenstraat 17A, 2513 BM The Hague
