Before the Green Disappears: A Bowl of Matcha in a Changing World
- Yuna Lee
- 6 days ago
- 7 min read
Before I go to bed, I sometimes think about the matcha latte I will make in the morning.
It is a small anticipation: the green powder waiting inside its tin, the sound of water warming, the soft resistance of the bamboo whisk, and the first creamy sip. I make mine simply, with matcha and soy milk. It is not an elaborate ceremony. Sometimes there are dishes in the sink. Sometimes my phone is already blinking before I begin.
Still, before emails, conversation, or the many small demands of being alive, there is a bowl in my hands.
The gestures are familiar.
Scoop. Sift. Pour. Whisk. Taste.
I repeat them almost every morning, yet the bowl is never exactly the same. The water may be warmer. My hand may be faster or more tired. The matcha may taste especially sweet one day and more oceanic the next.
And I am never exactly the same person drinking it. I may arrive peaceful, distracted, lonely, hopeful, or already overwhelmed.
The ritual does not ask me to feel differently. It only asks me to notice where I am.
For a long time, I thought this was the meaning of presence: paying attention to the bowl in front of me. But the more I learned about matcha, the more I began to understand that presence does not end at the edge of the bowl.
To be present with something is also to ask where it came from, what made it possible, and what may be changing beyond our sight.
Looking More Closely at the Powder
Matcha is often described as green tea powder. Technically, this is true. But it is like describing the ocean as salt water. Something essential is missing.
Authentic Japanese matcha begins as tencha. Before harvest, tea plants are covered and shaded from direct sunlight. In the diminished light, the leaves develop more chlorophyll and amino acids such as L-theanine, contributing to matcha’s vivid green color, sweetness, and savory depth.
The young leaves are harvested, steamed, and dried without being rolled. Their stems and veins are removed, and the remaining leaf is slowly ground into an extremely fine powder.
When we drink most teas, we steep the leaves and then remove them. With matcha, we drink the suspended leaf itself.
Nothing disappears.
Its color, fragrance, texture, sweetness, bitterness, and umami all arrive together.
Good matcha should not be merely bitter, nor should it always require milk or sugar to become enjoyable. It may taste like tender greens, fresh peas, young bamboo, sea air, or the cool shade beneath trees. Some matchas feel bright and lively. Others are round, creamy, and lingering.
A gentle bitterness may be present, but it should belong to the whole taste rather than conquer it.
This is why “Do I like matcha?” can be a difficult question.
Which matcha?
When was it ground?
How was it stored?
Was the water too hot?
Was it intended to be prepared with water, or was it selected for a latte?
Matcha is sensitive to heat, oxygen, light, and time. Even an excellent matcha can lose its fragrance and vivid color if it sits too long in a warm cupboard.
The bowl reflects not only the quality of the leaf, but everything that happened between the field and our hands.
Looking Beyond “Ceremonial Grade”
The words ceremonial grade now appear on countless tins of matcha.
The phrase sounds ancient and official, as though it belongs to a classification established by generations of Japanese tea masters. In reality, “ceremonial grade” is largely a modern marketing term, especially common outside Japan. There is no single, universally regulated Japanese standard governing its use.
Generally, sellers use it to suggest that a matcha is smooth and refined enough to drink with water. But because each company may define it differently, the label alone cannot tell us the tea’s cultivar, harvest, region, freshness, shading method, processing quality, or flavor.
In traditional Japanese tea practice, matcha is better understood through its character and intended use. Some matchas are suited to usucha, or thin tea. More refined matchas may be used for koicha, a thick preparation made with more powder and much less water. Other matchas are chosen for everyday drinking, lattes, sweets, or cooking.
A matcha intended for a latte is not necessarily inferior. Milk requires a tea with enough strength, body, and gentle bitterness to remain present. A very delicate and expensive matcha may simply disappear beneath it.
Instead of trusting one impressive phrase, we can ask more useful questions:
Where was the tea grown?
When was it harvested and ground?
How was it stored?
How is it meant to be prepared?
And, finally, how does it taste?
The label may say “ceremonial,” but the real story of the tea is found elsewhere.
If we look beyond the label, we eventually arrive at the field.
Returning to the Field
Powdered tea traveled from China to Japan through Buddhist exchange and gradually developed into the Japanese way of tea. At its heart is an awareness often expressed through ichigo ichie: one time, one meeting.
This gathering, this guest, and this bowl will never exist together in precisely the same way again.
Today, that teaching feels meaningful for another reason. The landscapes capable of producing excellent matcha are also changing.
Matcha has traveled far beyond the tearoom. It now appears in cafés, sweetened lattes, protein drinks, desserts, cosmetics, and social-media culture. Global desire for its flavor, color, and perceived health benefits has grown at extraordinary speed.
Japan produced approximately 5,336 metric tons of tencha in 2024, nearly 2.7 times the amount produced ten years earlier. The value of Japanese green-tea exports rose by 25 percent that year, largely because of the growing demand for powdered teas such as matcha.
Yet even as production has expanded, demand has grown faster. Some respected producers have restricted purchases, while the climate conditions necessary for high-quality tea are becoming less reliable.
Tea depends upon particular patterns of temperature, rainfall, soil, and seasonal change. Matcha is especially vulnerable because quality matters as much as quantity.
Excessive heat can damage tea bushes and reduce the following spring’s harvest. Drought, irregular rain, and warmer winters can disturb the timing of new growth, increase insects and disease, and alter the delicate balance of sweetness, bitterness, umami, and aroma.
These conditions also increase the costs of irrigation, shading, labor, and production.
After Japan experienced its hottest year on record in 2024, a sixth-generation Uji tea farmer told Reuters that his 2025 tencha harvest had fallen from his usual two tons to 1.5 tons, a loss of one quarter.
At a Kyoto auction in May 2025, tencha reached ¥8,235 per kilogram, approximately 170 percent higher than the previous year.
Planting new fields cannot immediately answer the shortage. Tea plants require around five years before their leaves can be harvested.
The world learned to desire matcha very quickly.
Tea plants continue to live according to another kind of time.
They cannot become five years old in one year simply because cafés are running out.
What the Bowl Holds
One morning, as I held my matcha, I imagined the field from which it had come.
I pictured rows of tea plants beneath their coverings and farmers watching the sky for changes invisible to those of us standing far away in our kitchens.
Too much heat. Not enough rain. Rain arriving at the wrong time.
The powder in my bowl suddenly felt less like a product and more like the final page of a long story. It contained soil, weather, labor, time, and generations of knowledge carried by people whose names I may never know.
I once thought my morning ritual was a way of withdrawing from the world for a few quiet minutes. Now I think it may be a way of entering the world more fully.
This does not mean that one bowl of matcha is causing climate change, or that pleasure should become guilt. But awareness can change how we consume what we love.
It might mean buying less but choosing carefully, learning where our matcha was grown, storing it properly, and selecting the right tea for the way we intend to prepare it rather than trusting labels such as “ceremonial grade.”
Care is not always about luxury. Often, it is simply about not wasting what has been entrusted to us.
When I prepare matcha now, I watch the powder fall through the sifter and notice its fragrance as warm water touches it. I whisk until a fine green foam appears.
The tea connects my kitchen to a field I may never visit.
The bowl does not stop time or protect anything from change. It simply gives me somewhere to meet what is here while it is still here.
Creating Your Own Matcha Ritual
You do not need a formal tearoom or years of training to begin meeting matcha with care.
Warm your bowl, then dry it. Sift a small amount of fresh matcha. Add water that is hot but not boiling, then whisk lightly from the wrist until a fine foam appears.
Before drinking, pause.
Notice the color. Inhale its aroma. Feel the warmth of the bowl.
Take the first sip without immediately deciding whether you like it. Allow the taste to unfold before naming it.
These are not rules for achieving perfection. They are invitations to intimacy.
As you repeat the practice, you begin to recognize what different matchas offer and how small choices, water, temperature, ratio, and rhythm, change the bowl.
Eventually, you may also notice how the bowl changes you.
An Invitation to Make and Taste Matcha Together
On Sunday, August 23, I will offer a hands-on Matcha Making Workshop at Santa Barbara Yoga Center.
We will taste several Japanese matchas, explore the differences between them, and we will also make the tea with traditional tools.
We will learn how to prepare and whisk matcha, then practice making a bowl both for ourselves and for another person. We will finish with an organic Korean matcha latte.
More than learning a technique, this is an invitation to experience matcha as it truly is: vivid, complex, embodied, and alive.
Somewhere far away, tea plants will stand beneath their coverings. A farmer may look at the sky and wonder what kind of season is coming.
I will warm the water.
I will scoop, sift, pour, and whisk.
Then I will hold the bowl for a moment before drinking, not to stop time or pretend that everything will remain as it is, but to recognize what has traveled across land, weather, labor, and years to reach my hands.
Perhaps presence does not always begin with silence.
Sometimes it begins by looking closely at an ordinary bowl and discovering that the world is already inside it.
Comments