I may be done with all my sencha reviews for the Sayama teas, but that doesn’t mean that I’m done with all the teas I got from these farms! One of the farms, Okutomi-en, also produces matcha and since I finally have a matcha bowl and whisk, I decided to get some to try! From what I read, this matcha is made for usucha!

I’m not an expert in matcha, but I really liked how green the powder was! The tin was sealed up and the matcha was in a foil packet inside the tin, so I’m pretty sure that you could keep this for some time without any problems as long as the tin is unopened.

For me, the matcha whips easily into a foam that is pretty stable – it lasted through the photo-taking, after all! It’s a pleasant change from my first few frustrated attempts to whip the matcha up correctly.

In terms of taste, this matcha was fresh, vegetal, and surprisingly sweet. I also got a toasted seaweed note alongside a strong umami note while drinking. I’ve always thought of matcha as a fairly bitter drink, but this had stronger sweet and umami notes than bitter and would make a great introduction to matcha. I actually got some brownies ready for my first drink, in case I needed something to balance the matcha (joking, I just wanted brownies) but they turned out to be unnecessary.

I also tried making this as a matcha latte and while the umami notes kind of disappear among the milk, the milk did give it an additional sweetness that reminded me a lot of matcha chocolate.

Overall, I really enjoyed this tea! As someone who hasn’t drunk a lot of matcha (especially a lot of pure matcha), I found this to be a very drinkable tea. I can see this becoming a staple in my tea cupboard.