Preparing Matcha with Boiling Water

There’s a myth boiling water “burns” green tea, including matcha.

I’ll talk about that in another post, but actually, some green teas taste better in boiling water.

I decided to do my experiment and show you my results regarding matcha.

What water temperature is best for matcha?

First of all, I must say that I have prepared very high-quality matcha in boiling water, which still tastes great.

So, for this experiment, I’ll use medium quality matcha. That way, I can quickly tell the difference in bitterness.

I’ll prepare the same matcha in boiling and cold water and see the difference.

For the sake of precision, I measured the volume of water (60 ml, 2 oz) with a small measuring cup. Each portion of matcha was 1.5 gr, weighed with my AWS scale.

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Preparing matcha with different temperatures

Left: boiling water. Suitable: cold water.

I made the first bowl of matcha with boiling water from my tea kettle and the other bowl with cold water from my refrigerator.

Then I whisked them.

The one with boiling water was easier to whisk into a nice foam layer.

However, with cold water, the result looks identical. It just took a little more time to froth.

Since temperature affects the perceived taste, I had to taste them both at the same temperature.

I did place both bowls in the refrigerator for 5 minutes.

When I took them out, they were both equally cold.

Just in case, I whisked them again. The matcha could have settled down at the bottom of the tea bowl.

The one made with boiling water tasted a little more bitter. Not excessively painful, but it was noticeable.

On the other hand, the matcha made with cold water wasn’t bitter, but it seemed a thwacked flavour.

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Perhaps I’m used to drinking matcha when it’s warm?

So I guess that it’s to prepare matcha with hot water (80ºC, 176ºF) because the taste at a lower temperature would be lighter and at a higher more bitter.

But not at a higher temperature ththanhe change in bitterness isn’t so extreme, for example, in a loo,se-leaf green tea such as sencha.

In other words, matcha is less delicate in that sense.

Temperature changes don’t affect matcha because it is not an infusion but rather a mixture.

The concentration of matcha is the same regardless of the temperature, but in loose leaf tea, the conc iteration changes with time as it infuses.

And since loose leaf tea can be re-infused, the change in concentration is more dramatic.

I encourage you to try this experiment and see if you can tell the difference.

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