Mushroom matcha is ceremonial grade Japanese matcha with mushroom extract blended into it. Ours carries five species at 500mg a serving, and 100mg of Suntheanine®.
It is a better vehicle for these mushrooms than coffee is, and we sell the coffee too. This page explains why, and then explains what matcha actually is, because almost everything sold under that name in India is not ceremonial grade and most people have never been told how to check.
What Mushroom Matcha Is
Two products live on one page, which confuses people. Here they are, plainly.
| Just Matcha | Mushroom Matcha | |
|---|---|---|
| The tea | Ceremonial grade, Shizuoka | Ceremonial grade, Shizuoka |
| Mushrooms | None | Five species, 500mg per serving |
| Suntheanine® | None | 100mg per serving |
| For | Whisking plain, the traditional way | A daily bowl with more in it |
| India, 30g | ₹1,080 | ₹1,620 |
The five are Lion's Mane, Cordyceps militaris, Reishi, Chaga and Turkey Tail. Whole fruiting body, never mycelium grown on grain. What each one is, and what is in it, is set out here.
Reishi is bitter and Chaga is earthy, and matcha is one of the few things bitter and earthy enough to carry them without a fight. It is a better vehicle for these five than coffee is, and we sell the coffee too.
The L-Theanine Question
Shading the tea plant raises its L-theanine content. This is well established, and it is one of the reasons a good matcha tastes brothy and sweet rather than sharply astringent. L-theanine is a large part of tea's umami.
So a fair question: if matcha already contains L-theanine, why does our Mushroom Matcha also contain 100mg of Suntheanine®?
The honest answer
Because the amount in a leaf is not a known quantity. It varies with cultivar, shading time, harvest and grade. Nobody selling matcha can tell you how many milligrams are in your bowl, and anybody who does is guessing.
Suntheanine® is a measured 100mg. It is over 99 percent the pure L-isomer, made by enzymatic fermentation rather than chemical synthesis. We wrote about why the isomer matters separately.
The matcha brings its own. We add a known amount on top, because a known amount is worth more than an assumed one.
What Is Matcha?
Matcha is powdered green tea made from Camellia sinensis, the same plant that gives you black tea, oolong and every other true tea. What separates it is what happens before and after the harvest.
For roughly three to four weeks before picking, the tea bushes are shaded. Starved of direct sun, the plant produces more chlorophyll and more amino acids, and the leaves turn a deep, almost unnatural green. Those shaded leaves are called tencha.
After harvest the tencha is steamed to stop oxidation, dried, stripped of stems and veins, and then stone-milled in a granite mill that turns slowly enough not to heat the leaf. It takes about an hour to produce thirty grams.
That hour, and that stone, is most of what you are paying for.
Matcha Meaning
The word is Japanese. 抹茶. The first character, ma, means to rub or grind. The second, cha, means tea.
Ground tea. That is the whole of it, and it is a more honest name than most of what is written about it.
What Is Matcha Made Of?
Whole tea leaf, and nothing else. A real matcha ingredient list has one item on it.
Because you consume the leaf rather than an infusion of it, matcha carries the leaf's solids: catechins including EGCG, caffeine, L-theanine, chlorophyll, and dietary fibre. Those are compositional facts about a tea leaf. They are not a reason to drink it, and this page will not pretend otherwise.
Ours is sourced from Shizuoka, Japan, shade-grown and stone-milled.
Ceremonial vs Culinary Grade
There is no legal definition of "ceremonial grade". It is a trade term, and like every trade term it is abused. But the underlying distinction is real and it is visible in the cup.
| Ceremonial | Culinary | |
|---|---|---|
| Leaves | First harvest, youngest, softest | Later harvests, older leaves |
| Colour | Vivid, almost electric green | Dull, olive, sometimes yellowish |
| Texture | Talc. Silky between the fingers | Gritty |
| Taste | Sweet, brothy, umami, low bitterness | Astringent, bitter, made for masking |
| Made for | Whisking with water alone | Lattes, baking, ice cream |
| India price, 30g | Roughly ₹1,200 to ₹2,500 | Roughly ₹600 to ₹900 |
Neither is better. They are for different jobs. A ceremonial matcha whisked into a sweetened iced latte is a waste of both, and a culinary matcha drunk plain is a punishment.
How to Spot Fake Matcha
The single most useful number on this page
Anything sold at under ₹500 per 30 grams is very unlikely to be real matcha.
Legitimate import, ceremonial-grade sourcing and Indian compliance add thirty to sixty percent on top of the Japanese price. The arithmetic does not permit a cheap ceremonial matcha. Something else is in the tin.
Four more checks, in the order you can apply them.
- Colour. Vivid, almost fluorescent green. Olive, khaki or yellow-green means old leaf, sun-grown leaf, or both.
- Texture. Rub a pinch between your fingers. It should feel like talcum powder, not sand. Grit means it was not stone-milled.
- Origin. A named Japanese prefecture: Uji, Nishio, Shizuoka, Kagoshima, Yame. "Product of Japan" alone is not an origin.
- Ingredient list. One line. If there is sugar, milk powder, maltodextrin or "green tea extract" on it, you have bought a drink mix.
Green Tea vs Matcha
The difference is not the plant. It is what you do with the leaf.
Green tea is an infusion. You steep the leaves, drink the water, and throw the leaves away. Only what dissolves reaches you.
Matcha is a suspension. The leaf is in the cup, ground to particles a few microns across, and you swallow it. Nothing is discarded.
That is the entire distinction, and it explains the colour, the texture, the caffeine, and the price without requiring a single claim about your body.
Does Matcha Have Caffeine?
Yes. Anybody telling you otherwise is describing a different drink.
Because you consume the whole leaf, a serving of matcha delivers more caffeine than the same weight of steeped green tea, and generally less than a strong coffee. Published figures vary widely with the grade, the harvest and how much powder you use, which is why we are not going to print a number we have not measured in our own tin.
Treat a bowl of matcha the way you would treat a cup of tea, and treat your third one the way you would treat your third coffee.
What This Page Will Not Say
Removed from this page
- Claims about organs, and about the shape of your body
- Claims about your body's defences
- Claims about what a drink does to your mind
- Vitamin and mineral lists dressed up as reasons to drink tea
- A word this tea has never needed, used twice
What is left
- The plant. Camellia sinensis, shaded, harvested young
- The process. Steamed, dried, stone-milled
- The origin. Shizuoka, Japan
- The grade, and how to check it yourself
- The additions. 500mg of mushroom, 100mg of Suntheanine®
Matcha has been drunk for eight hundred years without any of it. The tea does not need the help.
How to Make It
The traditional bowl
Sift one to two grams into a warmed bowl. Add about 60ml of water at roughly 80 degrees, never boiling, which scorches the leaf and makes it bitter. Whisk briskly in a W motion with a bamboo chasen until a fine foam forms across the surface. Drink it immediately, from the bowl.
Matcha latte
Whisk the same one to two grams with a little hot water first, into a smooth paste with no lumps. Then add hot or cold milk. Skipping the paste step is why home lattes go grainy.
Iced matcha
Whisk with a small amount of hot water, pour over ice, top with cold water or milk. Matcha does not dissolve in cold water. It never will. Make the paste first.
Cautions
- Matcha contains caffeine. Not for children. Pregnant women should follow their doctor's caffeine guidance.
- Anyone with a known mould or fungal allergy should avoid the Mushroom Matcha.
- Chaga is high in oxalates. Anyone with kidney disease or a history of kidney stones should avoid the mushroom blend, and choose the plain matcha.
- Anyone taking an anticoagulant should speak to a doctor before taking Reishi in any form.
- Anyone pregnant, nursing, or on prescribed medication should consult a qualified practitioner.
Ceremonial Matcha, With or Without Mushrooms
Stone-milled ceremonial grade from Shizuoka. Plain, or with five mushroom fruiting-body extracts at 500mg and 100mg of Suntheanine®. One leaf, two products, one page.
See the matcha →
