Why Matcha Doesn't Fully Dissolve in Water?

When you first try preparing your own matcha tea or matcha latte, you may notice that there are some lumps that not able to dissolve in water. Besides, when you leave the matcha tea for sometime, there is still some matcha powder fall to the bottom of the cup no matter how hard you whisked.

This happen to all matcha powder in the world, even for the top grade matcha powder. You are not seeing in some branded matcha latte drinks because either they are not prepared using pure matcha powder (but with sugared-powder) or they've prepared the matcha tea in a separate cup.

Matcha powder doesn't truly 100% dissolve in water like sugar or milk powder does. It's because matcha powder is actually very tiny bit of tea leaf, matcha powder is made from tea leaf ground into powder form. You will always find matcha powder fall to the bottom of the cup if you leave your matcha tea for too long. When you whisk the matcha, you actually create suspension of the tea leaf powder in the water, not dissolving it.

Matcha powder has slight electrostatic energy, making it clump and form lumps. Sifting it will definitely break the lumps.

Here are some tips:

• Sift your matcha powder to remove the lumps
• Whisk your matcha tea to break the lumps (or use shaker)
• Use good quality stone ground matcha powder, finer powder is better
• Use hot water (70C, not boiling water)
• More water or less matcha powder (ratio has to be right)
• If you are making matcha drinks such as matcha latte, prepare your matcha tea first then only add sugar and milk into it. If you add matcha directly into milk, you will get lumps in your matcha latte drink (unless you sift it).
• Prepare your matcha tea in a separate cup.