Ceremonial Matcha

A ceremonial grade matcha from the volcanic foothills of Kirishima, Kagoshima – grown on mineral-rich organic soil under a unique shade cover invented by the producer himself. Vivid, deeply green, and smooth with a natural sweetness and umami depth that makes most other matcha's feel like a different product entirely.

£27.50 GBP

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Weight 50g 250g

Delivery & returns

Free standard delivery for orders over £40. We aim to deliver your Waterloo Tea order quickly and securely. For full details on shipping options, delivery times, and our returns policy, please visit our Delivery Information page (link the delivery information page).

Packaging

Our teas are designed with sustainability in mind. Loose leaf teas and tea bags are packed in recyclable pouches, and our tea bags are fully compostable, perfect for your home food waste bin.

Storage

Store your tea in a cool, dry place away from direct sunlight. Keep pouches sealed between uses to preserve flavour and character. Most teas remain enjoyable after their best-before date, though blends with added flavours may lose their intensity after this date.

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Description

Not all matcha is created equal – and this one makes that point better than we ever could.
Our ceremonial matcha comes from a family farm nestled at the foot of the Kirishima volcanic mountain range in Makizono, Kagoshima. The farm has been growing without synthetic pesticides or fertilisers long before it was fashionable, and has recently passed from father to son – a new generation carrying forward something genuinely special.

What immediately sets this matcha apart is the colour. Where lower-grade matchas and older teas fade into a dull, yellowed green, this one is vivid and deeply saturated. This is a direct result of the extended shade cultivation that drives chlorophyll production into overdrive. But colour alone doesn't tell the full story.

In the cup, this matcha is everything ceremonial grade should be: smooth, sweet, and layered with a distinct umami depth. The mouthfeel is thick without being heavy, grassy without being sharp, and there's a natural sweetness that lingers long after the last sip. Prepared as a traditional thin whisked matcha (usucha), it's meditative and refined. Prepared as a thick matcha (koicha), it's extraordinary.

Beyond taste, matcha has long been celebrated for what it does to the mind. Because you're consuming the whole leaf (not just steeping it) you ingest a significantly higher concentration of active compounds, including L-theanine and caffeine. The result is a state of calm, focused alertness that Buddhist monks have relied on for centuries and that modern professionals are rediscovering for their own reasons. This isn't a caffeine spike. It's something more considered.
Available as loose powder, supplied in airtight packaging and presented in a resealable pouch.

Origin

Kagoshima sits at the southernmost tip of Japan's Kyushu island, and its tea-growing conditions are unlike almost anywhere else in the country. The Kirishima mountain range, an active volcanic chain, has spent millennia depositing a mineral-rich, well-draining soil known as Shirasu across the region. For tea cultivation, this is a gift. Shirasu soil encourages deep root systems, imparts a subtle mineral complexity to the leaf, and drains quickly enough to prevent waterlogging, keeping the plants healthy and productive across decades of cultivation.

Makizono, the small town where this farm sits, benefits from the dramatic elevation shifts and cool mountain air that slow the growth of the tea plant just enough to concentrate flavour. This is the same principle at work in the world's most celebrated wine regions: slow-grown, stressed plants produce more complex, nuanced results. Here, it produces a Tencha leaf with exceptional sweetness and depth, which translates directly into the finished matcha.

The farm has been operating since 2000 with no synthetic fertilisers and no pesticides, meaning the volcanic soil has been cultivated and improved on its own terms for over two decades. That commitment to the land isn't incidental; it's integral to the character of what's in your cup.

Processing

Matcha begins its life as Tencha – a shade-grown green tea leaf that is steamed, dried, cut, and destemmed before being ground into powder. Every stage of this process shapes the final cup, and this producer approaches each one with an unusual level of care and ingenuity.

Shading is the defining step in producing high-quality Tencha. By blocking sunlight for 21 to 23 days before harvest, the plant is forced to produce more chlorophyll and L-theanine in an attempt to absorb whatever light is available. This is what gives ceremonial matcha its deep colour, its sweetness, and its umami character. Most producers use either traditional overhead canopy shading (tana) or direct cover (jikagise), each with known tradeoffs. This producer uses neither. He has developed his own single-layer direct cover method that avoids the leaf damage and flavour degradation that conventional direct covering can cause over time – the exact mechanism is a closely guarded business secret, but the results are evident in the cup. Around 85 to 90 percent of sunlight is blocked, producing a leaf with exceptional chlorophyll density.

After harvest, the leaves are mechanically picked, including up to the fourth leaf, then steamed to halt oxidation, dried, cut, and carefully destemmed to produce clean Tencha. The cultivar blend used each year is chosen by the producer himself and may vary to maintain a consistent flavour profile.

Fresh Tencha is refrigerated in airtight packages immediately after processing and ground in small batches throughout the year rather than all at once – matcha powder degrades far more quickly than the intact leaf, so this matters. The new harvest also needs time. Fresh spring Tencha can be too bright and slightly bitter; left to rest through the summer months, it mellows into the rounder, more balanced notes that define a great ceremonial matcha. From August onward, the producer gradually blends the new harvest with diminishing quantities of the previous year's Tencha, maintaining a seamless, consistent flavour all the way through to the following spring.

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Ceremonial Matcha