If you're buying
The best matcha powder in Canada
Ranked, priced per gram, with the shipping and tax maths done. Split by grade so you don't pay ceremonial prices for something going into a latte.
The tin is not the tea
Most matcha sold in Canada
isn't what the tin says.
Grade labels are unregulated. "Ceremonial" means whatever the seller wants it to mean. We buy the tins ourselves, taste them side by side, and price everything in Canadian dollars — landed, after shipping.
If you're learning
What matcha actually is
Shade-growing, stone-milling, first harvest, and why a $12 bag and a $60 tin are not the same product. Plus how to spot the fakes.
The check you can do in the shop
What the colour is telling you
Hold a bag up against this. Every claim on the front of a tin is a word somebody chose; the colour of the powder is the leaf, the shade and the age of it, and none of that can be written on a label.
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Vivid jade
First harvest, well shaded, recently milled. What you are paying for.
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Grass
Good everyday matcha. A shorter shading, or a few weeks open.
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Olive
A later picking, or a tin that has been sitting with air in it.
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Khaki
Culinary grade. Fine under milk and sugar, thin and bitter alone.
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Yellow-brown
Oxidised. Stale, or barely shaded to begin with. Do not drink it straight.
Colour dulls with later harvests, less shade, and air. It is the one grade check a label cannot fake — the other five are here.
Three things that make it matcha
Green tea ground up is not matcha. This is what the price is buying.
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Shade-grown
Covered for the last weeks before picking. Starving the leaf of light is what makes matcha sweet and deep green instead of grassy.
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Stone-milled
Granite wheels turning slowly, an hour for a tin. A fast grinder heats the powder and scorches the flavour out of it.
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Sieved
Matcha clumps in the tin. Push it through a mesh before the water goes in, or you spend the whole whisk chasing lumps you will drink anyway.
Guides
- What is matcha Matcha is shade-grown Japanese green tea, ground to powder and drunk whole. Here is what that actually changes, and why price varies tenfold.
- Matcha grades explained Nobody regulates the word "ceremonial". Here is what separates the grades in practice, and the four things to check instead of the label.
- How to spot fake matcha Most "fake" matcha is not fake at all — it is real tea sold as something it is not. Six checks that catch it before you have spent $40.
We buy every tin at retail.
Nothing is sent to us for review.
Prices are what it costs to land it in Canada.