Finding the Best Matcha | JAPAN TRIP

80 heads this is done from a leaf in this video finding the best matcher in this video I invite you to join us as we travel through Japan to source our matcha tea this video is going to go under the tea trips playlist if any point in time you enjoy this video then please give the video the thumbs up the more thumbs in the air the more tea videos are going to come your way and if you haven't subscribed to our YouTube channel yet then go click that button welcome to Japan welcome to Shizuoka Prefecture we've just arrived by bullet train from Tokyo and this is our first stop in our quest to find this year's matcha tea it's springtime in every spring we need to source the may leaf matcha that we're going to be selling throughout the year and the best way to do that is to visit the farmers and to taste their wares I've already done videos before on everything that you need to know about matcha and how to brew matcha tea I'll put links to those videos in the description below but in this video I would like to transport you to the farms fields and mountains of Japan to show you how we source matcha so that you know what to look for when finding your own tea so if you're ready let's go visit the farmers [Music] [Music] [Music] we're here in Okabe this is our first stop in Shizuoka Prefecture to find our matcha tea and we are in a gear Kudo farm but the tension the the leaves to make matcha are not going to be harvested for another week they're harvesting yoku row now and so I want to show you what basically tents your growing conditions are like this is a shaded tea plantation 410 sure it'll be shaded for 20 days or more for ceremonial grade and all of our match it has to be ceremonial grade so therefore when you're seeking out matcha make sure it's been it's been shade-grown for at least 20 days before harvest the picking 410 sure is actually a bit larger leaf than for Sencha and Gil Kuro so if you Saleem can zoom in here you can see can you focus on my hands here so this is the standard picking for essential gyaku row a bud and two leaves sometimes they'll pick this leaf if it's nice and tender enough but 410 sure which is the raw material that is used to grind to make match they want the leaves to be slightly bigger something around this size here what they want is the leaf to stay quite flat so that they can devein the leaf which is take this main central vein out and they can grind it easily so they intentionally allow the leaf to grow a little bit larger something like this they do not want to let it get to this stage down here where it's rough and rigid and waxy and is not going to make good tea so timing as with all tea plantations that we ever visit is paramount so we're tasting Okabe matter interesting fact or carve a match the tension made in Okabe used to be predominantly sold to kyoto to make kyoto matcha which is a very famous match a Kyoto matter but about seven years ago the Japanese government stopped that act Vitti the match derivation where it comes from has to be where the tea is grown so now Okabe cannot sell its tension to Kyoto to make Kyoto matter so this is Okabe matter but it's interesting because it shows you that the quality in Okabe is very very good this is Yavin Keita cultivar matcha so we're gonna give this a taste this has been made with hot water 90 degrees because we want to really bring out all of the flavors so that we can taste the weaknesses in the tea as well as the things that they're delicious in the tea very very simple clean nice matter taste green grass chlorophyll nothing complicated nothing complex about it very very simple to simple really doesn't have enough depth in complexity it's commonly used as the starting blend to make the matcha latte powders that are all found all over at various different brands selling matcha lattes those are usually then blended with vanilla flavorings and chlorophyll and other additives to make it to change the flavor and keep it very bright green it's not something that we would purchase it's very very simple delicious clean but we're looking for a little bit more complexity we've moved from Shizuoka Prefecture to Kyoto prefecture and we are in the very faint area of boogy boogy is very very well known for its matcha you walk out of the station in Kyoto and everywhere you look it's all about matcha tea an interesting thing about a masher that most people don't talk about is that the farmers here and in other areas that it's very well known in Kyoto will take their tension which is the raw material used to the use to grind to make matcha powder they'll take the tension and they'll store the tension in pots like this one over here then isalean if you can get this one here this is a pot made up stoneware glazed and they will store they will store the tension in cold storage over time and over time what happens is that the texture will become more smooth and the flavor will become slightly more milder it will kind of polish off some of those kind of bright spikey cut grass notes and will become smoother and more rounded whereas the spring harvest attention it's ground immediately will have more of those bright notes and so the matcha producers job is ready to blend blend the tension in order to have a consistent product according to their specifications so masa is more about the expertise of curing the leaf and blending the leaf to have a very consistent flavor we're in a beautiful shaded plantation in Ooty in Kyoto these ladies behind me are busy picking it's picking season I have to say no matter which country I go to whenever there's prime hand picking to be done they always seem to be women doing it and it's a beautiful here they shade this these tea leaves for at least a month so this is a month and this covering here they will sometimes depending on the variety that are sometimes put three layers and block out over 90 percent of the Sun so really really really dark shade grown tea these ladies are busy picking the most tender leaves which is going to be turned either into gyaku row or tension or matcha we are at the errata refining Factory which will eventually become tension and then that will be ground down to match her it's very hot and very noisy in there so we decided to come outside you can see that the picking so this is the fresh leaf the picking is almost like an oolong picking they wait for the buds to go down to practically non-existent and so you've got larger leaves here which means that it's easier to process then it goes through a very short brief steaming phase but it's really short maybe 10 seconds or less the oxidation is really stopped by air drying so after the short steam it then goes through an extensive drying phase first of all it's blown around and in air there's air dried for a while and then it's sent through hot air ovens at about sixty degrees for a quite a long period and it dries and dries and dries early if it goes through a lot of drying so they're trying to dry the leaf as quickly as possible and you can see that this is different stages of the drying process this is right at the beginning stage of the drying process this leaf here get in focus and then it goes down to these kind of very brittle leaves here got it so that's then the brittle leaf but they still have stems then it goes through a sorting phase both mechanical and air sorting so mechanical just through a sieve and then eventually it gets blown around and the stems which are heavier here get get pushed to the bottom so they don't get blown up to the top and what's left are these very light very dry leaves here and this is now the archer which will then go for tension refinement which will take away any other stems and also take away any woody parts and that eventually will be ground down to make your matter we are in the master grinding room in this factory here it's a day off today which is probably a good thing because these are probably going to be making a lot of noise but let me quickly show you down here the match the tensioner is fed through here and these are the granite mills that are slowly turning slowly turning and the mattress being ground down the tensions being ground down and the match powder falls out of the the seam here between the two stones and then gets collected in the drawer below quite a neat little system and you can see I've got precious matter everywhere they have 13 stone mills here which are constantly working during the day so an eight-hour day 30 Mills constantly working will produce each mill will produce just a little over one kilo of matcha over the full day so it's slow grinding and this is really really important there is a huge difference between grinding in this way and grinding with machines because machines will add too much heat which will take it out of ceremonial grade and it will no longer be ceremonial grade mattress the ceremonial grade matter has to be stone ground it has to be kept lower temperature at least certainly under 50 degrees Celsius in front of me I have 2017 shink cha-cha-cha tension in other words it's going to become tension but it still hasn't been sorted in its spring harvest it's freshly picked they they're picking late this year because of the cold snap in March and April you can see here this is what tension looks like and as I said before larger leaves compared to your furrow and Sencha so they they picking the larger leaves this allows the leaf to not curl up which means it's suitable for grinding this is still got to be sorted all of these stems have to be taken away the smell of these are really really nice and fresh we've got three varieties in front of us we've got which in Akari we've got Sammy dory and we've gotten baka and you can again see the differences so this is Koko on my left and this is Sammy Dory here darker color and the smell is much more creamy and savory on this one and this is a lot brighter and again that Gockel with what we're finding is gorgeous has this kind of spiky brightness to it and what most matter is is blended so most of the skill of the tea master is by tasting the different textures from the different varieties choosing the characteristics that they want to show off and weaknesses that they wanted to hide and they'll create blends so it's going to be a combination of taste texture and cup color to get the ultimate blend of matcha for the tea master and that really is the skill of the master is to taste the tension and figure out what the blends are and so we're here a farmer farmers place and we are tasting their match this is OG the cultivar this matcha here and I'm excited to try out the froth on this looks incredible jade green amazing amazing color the taste compared to me once in Shizuka is completely different and the texture the taste is a little bit more savory it's definitely got more of that yogoro shaded tea taste to it and the thing that I'm getting the most is a kind of creaminess and a very very smooth texture very smooth it doesn't have any of the sharp notes of a kind of very fresh kind of bright matcha which is slightly grassy slightly astringent it's really creamy and really really smooth it's delicious hey guys we're back in London actually it's been about two months since we were in Japan we sampled matter all over Japan in Shizuoka Makino Hara area of Shizuka we went to eg and we tasted lots of matcha there but we decided to wait because the harvesting season was definitely later this year so we mistimed our travel by a few weeks and the pickings were later so therefore we thought it was best to leave time for the farmers to pick the prized pickings for the blenders to make the perfect blends and for us to sample back again in London so we've been sampling matcha from Kagoshima from muji from Shizuoka and in front of me I have our five shortlisted matcha and today I am finally going to be choosing our matcher for main leaf so I'm gonna bring the camera around and I'm going to show you the five shortlisted two teas so here they are the shortlist the five shortlist matches finally after all of our tasting let's go through them these two here are from Shizuoka Prefecture from the Makino Hara Plateau this is a pure a bolita variety from the in O'Hara Plateau this one here is a blend of Yabu kita aku Midori and Koko from the Makino Hara Plateau this one here is a sukira from Muji in near Kyoto this one here is hamare from Muji Kyoto and finally we have the renowned Fuji Hikari 100% pure Fuji Hikari from Fuji in Kyoto so these are our short lists obviously first glance these two have a very different color to these three these are much richer green color but don't let color be your sole judge of choosing your match this is something that I've really learned over time is that a lot of times manufacturers and producers will blend or create matcher specifically for color and cut and and the quality of cup color and it does not necessarily translate into flavor having said that one nice thing to do is just if you take a finger and you just stretch them over the powder and draw them out over a white bit of paper you tend to have a little bit clearer idea of the color differences this one here is definitely the most vibrant rich green color this one is the least these are all pretty similar but definitely the OG varieties just have a richer color but as I said don't let that be your judge we need to do the tasting so we'll be right back after we've prepared them all and do a blind tasting I always have to psych myself up I have to say one of the reason other reason why we couldn't drink too much matter in Japan because the caffeine rush that I get when I sample too much matter means that it's impossible for me to taste more than a handful of matches every few hours without going off the edge a little bit in terms of caffeine so this is going to be quite a hit for me there's five strong shots of matcha here what we've done is we've taken a teaspoon full heaped teaspoon and we put 50 mils of water I haven't frost it we've just mixed it up and then saline mixed up the arrangement here so I don't know which is which but we've labeled underneath although I can quite clearly see color differences here this one here is looking really green so as this one this is - this is my guess you shouldn't really guess but my guess is that these two are probably the shoes Walker but anyway shouldn't guess is all about taste and as I said you shouldn't focus too much on color it's one quality marker but ultimately it's all about the taste so let's take a sip of number one Cheers savory it's definitely got the umami rose the flowers are there definitely an OG matter you can taste Fuji matches just in general have more of the savory more of the creamy and less of the fresh bright grassy so it's a little bit more floral too creamy and this has its got the floral so sweet roses a little bit of a simple candy sweetness candy fruit sweetness and umami not so creamy a little bit roasted in its notes even though of course it's not roasted but it has a little bit of that very nice number two totally different grapefruit zest a little bit of concrete kind of stony more mineral very very fresh nice nice you know more bracing more of that kind of bracing matcha experience less of the creamy this I'm pretty sure is from it she's rocker but it's lacking depth it's a bit flat now I should say that we've tasted lots and these are the shortlist of five so I've already tasted all of the teas but now I don't know which one is which and I can make my guesses but I shouldn't do that so nice but I would say a little bit flat so if this is a horse race why don't we say that currently we're like that okay number three cheers everybody what should we get wired on caffeine mmm good combination fresh grass you got the cut grass does have some vegetal notes to it the vegetable notes are very spring-like a little bit of asparagus spinach not too savory but it's there there's enough umami there but is a nice nice fresh balanced nicely balanced tea this one this is a very it gives you that match a hit that you want but it's got a good refrain its elegant enough so I'm gonna throw that slightly ahead of this one here this guy here very very very green let me give it a quick stir because you can see it's starting to settle get that quick stir cheers everybody whoa whoa this is a very smooth really smooth ah like velvet savory got the umami got the vegetal spinach but cooked spinach rather than raw spinach it's like the difference this is more raw a bit more young a bit fresher this one here is definitely more cooked deeper the color reflects it very deep very creamy Wow the mouthfeel is very creamy that jumps ahead there so well and the persistence on that one Wow I think I might know which one that one is but I kind of hope it isn't because I know it's the most expensive one if it is okay so final match here well different again got a bit more more creamy a little bit kind of buttery to it hmm can't put my finger on it it's kind of mineral and buttery so it's got rocky notes to it slight hot beaches top sandy beaches it's got some vegetal but it's much more toned down there is a bit of floral but it's not really anything too bright the predominance the real great thing about this one is its creaminess this is a very creamy one but I would say that this is kind of on a par with this this one more savory slightly roasted rosey this one more creamy this one is definitely lowest in my book the color in this case does reflect that that is definitely a more yellow green than the others these two I would say are on a par now let's go for these two here let's see which one we're going to pick clearly difference in color so this is what I mean if I was just judging it on cup color then this would be the winner clearly but let's put these guys out of the way so just on cup color this would win but let's not do it that way let's do it by taste bracing sea air marine springtime cut grass like you've just cut the grass that's smelling the air that the grass gives off when it's been damaged raw more of a raw taste definitely your kind of green juice kind of taste oh my god this one is just standout delicious creamy umami it's got freshness the texture is thick the texture is velvet it's incredible okay so it's difficult for me because if I had to pick a winner it would probably be this one but this is really what a lot of people are looking for from their matcher experience that very bracing very fresh very vibrant very get up and go green taste so I'm tempted by both this definitely has more bitterness but it's refrained enough it disappears and that bitterness turns to sweetness difficult okay now I want to do the reveal because I need to get a judgment on price I know the prices of these and I know that the hundred-percent bougie chicory is the most expensive by quite a long way I'm kind of hoping that this is not the huge Hikari but let's find out so let's do it in order this one the rosy one the nice slight roastiness to it which is interesting this says a you so that's the acid Giri Fuji so it's a GU G as the Giri variety very very very nice I mean I would be very very happy with this matter at any any dinner party this would be a wonderful match I think it could have it could have been could have been the main leaf matter this one here this is the Yabba kita from Makino Hara so this is the most simple the least expensive are the most affordable but you can tell it's lacking it's just it's nice bit grapefruity zesty the bitterness persists a bit too much in that one so that's definitely that one there please be bougie Hikari H you know so this is this is the hamare from Fuji this is the vimar hamari from Muji ultra cream ultra creamy creamy creamy creamy very very nice but a bit one-dimensional on the creamy this one I'm gonna guess then is the blended from Makino Hara the M yep blended Maki no Hara so the machi no Hara the Shizuka definitely produces matcha which is less of the savory less of the creamy but has more of the bright fresh notes really really like this this is a very verdant matcha and this one here you-you-you G Hikari from Fuji this is the hundred-percent Fuji Hikari this is the one that's the most expensive and this I know there are only ten kilos of this matcher so it makes it very difficult for me because the price point and the fact that there's only ten kilos which is not enough for us form a leaf therefore I have to go for this one it's a delicious matter and I mean it it ticks all the boxes for your fresh raw spring get-up-and-go bracing espresso replacement this is great I think this is our main leaf matcher I know this is our main leaf matter this is definitely the main leaf matcher great supremely balanced this guy well clearly clearly I'm gonna have to get it because I love it so much better only ten kilos so it'll go very quickly the price point is very high but it is a stunner it is a stunner this is great great top a-a-a a-a-a-a fuji match if you're going to go for a new G I mean these two eg matches are delicious as well but I figure if you're gonna do a new G you know might as well go 100% Yuji Hikari go the full way and get the best you possibly can so decision made finally after months and months and months we're going to be stocking the blended Maki no Hara matter as our ceremonial grade organic this is organic I remember this is an organic matter but you know this Fuji chicory is first flush spring picked from one of the finest farms in OG so I know there's no pesticides on this so they're both very very high grade matches try them out see what you think that's it tea heads if you made it to the end of this video then please give the video the thumbs up check out our YouTube playlist and let us know if there any videos that you'd like us to make if you're ever in London and come visit us in Camden to say hi and taste always if you have any questions or comments then please fire them over other than that I'm done from a leaf thank you for being a part of the revelation of true tea stay away from those teabags keep drinking the good stuff and spread the word because nobody deserves bad teeth bye you

Channel: Mei Leaf

Views: 59,741

Rating: 4.9631505 out of 5

Keywords: tea, mei leaf, don mei, loose leaf tea, green tea, matcha tea, japanese tea, tea ware, teaware, tea gifts, gong fu tea, gong fu brewing, uji, uji matcha, kyoto, kyoto matcha, shizuoka matcha, tea trips, matcha latte, matcha ceremony, matcha, ceremonial matcha, high grade matcha, how to find matcha, how to select matcha, tasting matcha, what is a good matcha, how to make matcha, what is matcha, how is matcha made, tencha, матча, японский чай, чай, grüner tee, only in japan

Id: Cv4PTx1KPok

Length: 30min 31sec (1831 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 02 2017