Today, I want to introduce one of the teas that I bought in Kumamoto. It’s called 食べる緑茶 (Taberu Ryokucha) and it literally means “edible green tea”. This tea is from Izumi and if you believe the product page, it’s a super healthy tea to drink because the tea is powdered, which means that all the nutrients of the tea leaf stay in the tea.

According to the product description, this tea can be made hot or cold, and you can mix it into milk, yogurt, use it for baking, etc. Plus, a pack of 100g is enough for 10 litres of tea, which makes it really cheap if you think about the cost per cup.

When I first made the tea, I was surprised by how murky the tea was. And then I remembered that I had to let the tea settle [1] after which it turned clear. Taste-wise, the tea was surprisingly sweet and clean tasting, making for a very pleasant tea. I didn’t really measure the amount of tea powder I used, but you have to be very careful not to use too much tea.

I also tried the tea with milk, and while the tea didn’t dissolve completely, it also didn’t leave a layer of powder like Lupicia’s matchaway [2] did. The taste of the tea wasn’t very strong when I mixed it into milk, so I would advise using more tea powder (although personally, I prefer it with water).

粉末 (funmatsu) vs 抹茶 (matcha)
Now, when I searched for ‘powdered green tea’, which is what this literally is, google gave me search results for matcha. So I thought I’d spend some virtual space talking about the difference between this tea and matcha tea.

To make things a little more complicated, there are actually three types of powdered teas. So here are the three types of powdered teas available:

1. 粉茶 (konacha) — This is basically powdered tea made from sencha (煎茶). This tea is full of catechins, which is supposed to have a host of health benefits such aiding weight loss [3].

2. 抹茶 (matcha) — is what we think of when we think “powdered tea”. What makes the matcha leaf special is that it’s shielded from sunlight for 20 days/2 weeks [4] before the leaves are harvested. This results in higher levels of theanine, which increases the umami taste, and caffeine.

3. 粉末茶 (funmatsucha) — 食べる緑茶 belongs to this category. This is powdered tea that has been specially made to be easily dissolved in water. The difference between this and 粉茶 (funcha) is that 粉末 (funmatsu) is not meant to be dissolved in water.

I have also seen some powdered green teas with matcha added to them, so depending on what you want, you could end up buying something that crosses categories. At any rate, this 食べる緑茶 is delicious and you should definitely get a packet if you’re visiting Kumamoto. I got mine at the little marketplace next to Kumamoto castle.

Links and Notes
食べる緑茶 Product Page (Japanese)
粉末緑茶と抹茶の違いとは – The difference between powdered green tea and matcha (Japanese)
「粉のお茶」って3種類あるの？「粉茶」「粉末茶」「抹茶」の違い – There are three types of powdered tea? The difference between funcha, funmatsucha, matcha (Japanese)
粉茶と抹茶の違い – The difference between funcha and matcha (Japanese)

[1] Despite the fact that I’ve eaten sushi thousands of times, I didn’t make the connection until after I drank the tea. Yes, this is the tea that you get in sushi restaurants.

[2] Link to the matchaway review (complete with two recipes)

[3] For more information, this page has a good summary of the benefits of catechins in green teas.

[4] I had two different sites give me two different timespans. If you want to add in wikipedia, which says three weeks, then we have three possibilities. But basically the plant gets to seek shelter from the sun before its harvested.