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Japan vs China Matcha Comparison

Note: There are many Matcha from China has green color similar to culinary grade Japanese Matcha too. But the taste profile is very much different. Most of the Matcha powder from China are actually powder from Chinese tea, not Japanese green tea. Most customers who has no knowledge of Matcha will think that color is everything. Color can be used as an indicator only if you are comparing same type of Matcha.

 

For most of us, by default we assume matcha = Japanese matcha. But actually there are countries such as China and Taiwan producing matcha too. It's always our mission to find good matcha with lower price for our customers, so we decided to buy some matcha from China and compare with our Matcha.

 

Matcha actually originate from China, it's being brought to Japan by Zen Buddhist Monk and then became a popular beverage among Japanese. Matcha production and processing methods have been improved for close to 1000 years in Japan in order to create a green and high umami matcha.

 

In China, somehow matcha is not very popular and then lost favor in China during Tang Dynasty. China started to produce matcha about 20 years ago after matcha become popular worldwide. Its production and processing method still far less mature as compared to Japan. However, in term of green teas, China still has a wonderful and complex history.

 

Other than the processing method, the soil in China is very different then in Japan, the matcha produced also taste very different.

 

Comparison

For fair comparison, we select matcha with similar price range. (About RM37 selling on shopping website in Malaysia).

(We took down the picture as some local sellers raised their concern because they are selling this Matcha).

 

We compare it with our Organic Shizuoka Matcha because it has the lightest color in our product ranges (Organic matcha has higher price but usually has lighter color due to the natural characteristic of organic matcha).

Below picture shows the color comparison between China matcha with our Organic Shizuoka Matcha.

Matcha on the left is the China Matcha, on the right is our Organic Shizuoka Matcha.

china vs japan matcha comparison

 

Comparison:

  • Color : China matcha has brown-yellowish color, our Organic Shizuoka Matcha is way more greener.
  • Umami : China matcha is has no umami and very bitter, very high astringency which is similar to low grade Sencha powder. Organic Shizuoka matcha has umami taste .
  • Price : China Matcha is slightly cheaper (about 80% of Organic Shizuoka Matcha price)

 

We decide NOT to souce this matcha since it does not meet our standard.

 

In Matcha.my, we strictly sell high quality matcha from Japan only. We souce our matcha directly from tea farm, therefore our price is very reasonable as compared to other Japanese Matcha shop.