What is matcha?

"matcha has a unique balance of vegetal (think seaweed or edamame), bitter, and malty flavours." April Walloga - Business Insider

I have been vaguely aware of matcha here and there in my internet browsing and also in supermarkets, and I had no idea what it was. So today I decided to look it up. I confess I am marginally disappointed, but also interested - a bit.

To be honest I'm not sure whether I am late or not with this. Has matcha's moment passed? Although I couldn't actually find anything that said that it's moment in the sun had gone, I nevertheless saw hints here and there that this was so. And when I looked at Coles online I found that they only had four different types of tea (for matcha is tea), and no associated products. Also whilst desperately trying to think of who the big Health gurus were I could only think of Hemsley and Hemsley and when I went to their website I found nothing on matcha other than a very brief description of what it was.

So first of all what is it? Well it's the green tea that is used in the highly elaborate and lengthy Japanese tea ceremony. Except it's a powder not a leaf. Matcha is made from tencha - the leaves of the plant.

This particular tea plant is kept in the shade in the last 20 days of its growth, to increase the anti-oxidants, chlorophyll and also caffeine. Yes it's relatively high in caffeine so watch out for that. Also it can have fairly high amounts of lead in it. So not all healthy. But it also has theanine which is an amino acid. The only almost real health benefit I found was stress relief, although I am not sure that this wasn't also associated with the meditative qualities of the whole process.

"Teaism is a cult, founded on the adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday existence." Kakuzö Okakura

Anyway - the leaves are ground into the powder in a rather complicated way. Wikipedia has the whole story on this.

The tea used in the tea ceremony is then whisked with a particular hand-crafted bamboo whisk with hot water, to a frothy drink. Which is possibly why it's most popular use in Western society is the matcha latte.

"It has an astringent taste and vegetal notes, with a gentle bitterness and a creamy mouth feel. The first taste can prompt nose wrinkling - but only in the same way that the first taste of red wine or olives jolts the palette. The second taste often leads to a third." Rachel Smith - Daily Telegraph

I saw its taste often described as umami - which is a highly prized thing. So, of course, the western world has seized upon it as a magic ingredient to flavour just about anything but particularly cakes, biscuits, ice-creams and such things I guess. But I have to say that when I started looking at everybody's 10 best things of what to do with matcha, most of them looked pretty unappealing to me. They went on about the delicate colour - and yes that latte is a delicate green, but heaps of the things I found did not look delicate. Now I love green, but these things did not look good. After I had trawled around for a bit I suddenly thought of Donna Hay - queen of making things look good, and sure enough, she had several recipes - around half a dozen I think and they did indeed all look good. Here are three of them: Raw date, cacao and matcha chocolate bars, Lime and matcha popcorn, and Matcha almond and hazelnut bliss balls. Click on the pictures to get the full effect. They all look gorgeous but I'm not sure I shall be trying any of them.

To be fair to the rest of the cooking fraternity there were also a few others that looked tempting: Two from Gourmet Traveller - Matcha popsicles and Matcha rice with smoked trout, cucumber and pickled ginger.

Jill Dupleix also had Matcha bliss balls and Kara Lydon had Matcha raw cheesecake bites.

When I do this kind of post - an ingredient and some recipes I often get enthused about at least one or two of the recipes I find and vow to make them, even though I most probably don't, but I have to say that in spite of the beauty of some of Donna Hay's in particular - or rather the beauty of the food styling, I do not think that I shall be rushing to make any of them. But at least I now know what matcha is.

You learn something every day. Even if it is something you probably should have known anyway, and don't particularly want to learn either. But I suppose it is very interesting that something so ancient, so particular and so almost alien as the Japanese Tea Ceremony should have resulted in Lime and matcha popcorn. I don't know whether to be appalled or lost in admiration.