Jade Leaf Matcha Organic Matcha Green Tea Powder Ceremonial Quality - Premium Japanese First Harvest Teehouse Edition by Uji and Kagoshima (16oz Resealable Bulk Bag)

I've tried several brands of matcha over the years, but this is my all time favorite! It doesn't have to be Teahouse edition, any ceremonial blend from Jade Leaf is wonderful. But I have bought Teahouse the last two times I've ordered, because it comes in this huge pound pack. It's expensive, but not really. You get a ton of matcha for the price, and it's cheaper in the long run. Especially if you were buying matcha lattes elsewhere! I used to bring a small tin of matcha to work with me, along with a little squeeze bottle of sweetener. And I'd just grab a bottle of room temp water, drink a little to make space, then scoop some matcha in with a few drops of sweetener and mix vigorously. It worked pretty well and only left a few tiny globs of unmixed matcha. But the effect it had on me was so good that I came to love this simple mixture. Matcha contains L-Theanine, which mellows you out and honestly is just the best thing ever! It also contains caffeine, so it gives you energy. The 2 things working together is like a natural speedball! But it's not intense. You just feel calm, awake, and focused. And I've never felt a crash like I have from other caffeine sources. This is more sustainable energy. I tried the lavender oatmilk matcha latte from Starbucks a few months ago, and thought it was so good! I can tell the matcha they use is not as good as Jade Leaf, but the flavors compliment each other so well! At nearly $7 for a large, I started looking into making my own. I found some Torani lavender syrup at TJMaxx and everything changed.... At first I made a lavender cold foam for the latte, but quickly realized I didn't actually need it. There are very easy recipes online if you're interested. Because the Jade Leaf matcha is SO good, the simpler the better. I just take some warm water and add in lots of matcha- to make a concentrated amount. I put it in a cup with a lid and shake it really well- the warm water helps it to dissolve. Although if you have a wand or small blender, that would work well too. In a cocktail shaker I add ice, some of the matcha concentrate, oatmilk, and a dash or two of lavender syrup.....and shake really well. Then pour and drink as is, no foam needed. Aerating the 3 ingredients is the key. It also gets it really cold without having to deal with ice melting into your drink. If you don't have a cocktail shaker, use any cup with a lid. This homemade version with this superior matcha is so much better than what I can buy at a coffee shop. Speaking of, I have given up coffee for lavender matchas. I love coffee and espresso, and can make both at home, but really have no interest anymore. The matcha tastes better and makes me FEEL better!! I even bought a bottle of L-Theanine supplements in pill form- they're just derived from matcha! They make me feel wonderful too, but not as good as making and drinking my own. It's almost a spiritual experience, and I can clearly see why there are ceremonies dedicated to consuming it. I hope everyone else gets this much out of it, good luck!

This is the best matcha I’ve ever had!! No bitterness whatsoever and it blends beautifully! I drink it hot and cold, over ice with cold foam and a little cinnamon is the best!!

Very high-quality bright green coloured Matcha that tastes delicious!

To be clear, this isn't /bad/ matcha and it's priced well enough for /culinary/ grade matcha. It's more than usable in lattes and desserts, but that's the point of /culinary/ matcha, not /ceremonial/ matcha. Calling this ceremonial grade is the equivalent of calling crayola watercolors "professional" paints. Sure you /can/ make something cool out of them if you know what you're doing, but no professional artist would go out of their way to use them for their work. All the same, no person in their right mind would ever serve this in an actual tea ceremony after seeing how dark, unsaturated, and bitter it is. Point 1: It's very, very bitter, so much so that saturating it with sucrose and fat is the only way to remove the bitterness from a drink made from this. Bitterness in the plant matcha is made from happens when it either oxidizes or is exposed to too high a temperature of water. Ceremonial grade matcha is separated by freshness between first and second harvests, referring to the time it was harvested and processed, of course. As such, true ceremonial grade matcha is not bitter - if anything, it has notes of sweetness and doesn't need things like honey, sugar, syrups, cream, etc at all to be bright, vibrant, and sweet; not hyper-bitter. Point 2: The color of the tea made from this is very unsaturated and dark. This, outright is the result of the matcha being old and lower quality, end of discussion. Super unappealing if you were looking forward to drinking this in hot water. Point 3: You have to sieve and whisk for long enough to make it worth just using an electric whisk to get all the clumps out. I haven't experienced this with authentic ceremonial grade matcha before. Yes you need to whisk it a lot but you don't get such huge clumps. That's a sign this has been sitting on the shelf for so long that the oxidization preventing packet inside stopped doing it's job properly (can't confirm obviously, but that tends to be a common reason for this kind of thing." Something similar happens with powdered sugar if you don't add cornstarch to it, but even over time, most organic powders will start to clump. Fresh, genuine ceremonial grade matcha doesn't really have this issue since it's graded in part based on when it was picked and processed. No oxygen-absorbing packet will fully prevent this from happening. Point 4: This is all still true even when using much less than the appropriate amount for the water. Matcha that's hard to dissolve and simultaneously strongly bitter while being watered down so much that it's barely even tea anymore is not suitable for tea making in and of itself. At that point, you're better off just using regular tea leaves to infuse at that price point if your goal is to make tea from hot water. Point 5: To give this matcha the benefit of the doubt, I can't deny that it tastes pretty good in latte's; but again, that's the point of /culinary/ grade matcha, where bitterness can actually be beneficial as a balance or compliment to whatever you're making and sheer freshness (the absence of oxidizations and impurities) isn't a concern. Even though the price isn't that outrageous here, if you're going to be mixing it into milk or pastries anyways, then there are definitely better deals for culinary grade matcha on amazon. Point 6: I'm all about a company wanting to express the natural qualities of their product and being proud if they're sourced from a good location, but it's very obvious that the boasting in the description and the usage of the words "ceremonial grade" are buzzwords meant to compensate for this product's blatant lack of freshness. That false advertising is really frustrating and its the reason I don't have a good opinion of this product. Of course, that feels like something you would do if you want to mark the price up more than usual too, which is obviously more suspicious. The point: If it was marketed correctly as "culinary grade" matcha (which it factually is), then I'd probably be writing a 4 or 5 star review, because as /culinary/ grade matcha, it's not bad at all. Maybe a little overpriced, but the sealing/oxygen absorbing packet/taste are all /good/ quality in context of /culinary/ matcha. Compared to proper, authentic ceremonial grade though, this doesn't even come close. I know there aren't many people on western amazon who are well versed in proper matcha/tea ceremony stuff since it's something you generally have to be in Japan to properly experience, so it's not like anyone can blame 60k people for having good things to say about the product. If you like this matcha, then that's great. Between consumers like me and the company though, buzzwording "ceremonial grade" and photoshopping your product to be more saturated feels very disrespectful and disingenuous. I can't blame a larger company for doing that, but I can point out the inconsistencies and respectfully express my disappointment.

Decent taste if you like Matcha