How to Make Matcha: The Uchi Method for a First Bowl

Matcha has a reputation for being difficult. It is not. Made well, it is one of the simplest things you can prepare. Powder, water, a whisk, and a few unhurried minutes. Most of the confusion around how to make matcha comes down to a few small details that are easy to get right: the amount, the water, the whisk. Get those in order and the rest follows.

This is the Uchi method. Single-origin matcha, stone-milled at Okunoyama garden, Horii Shichimeien, in Uji, and a way of making it built for the first bowl as much as the hundredth.

1. Soak the whisk

   Rest the Whisk, the chasen in Japanese, in warm water for a minute before you begin. Soaking softens the fine bamboo prongs so they flex rather than snap, keeps the Whisk in good condition for longer, and helps it draw a better foam.

2. How much matcha to use

   Measure two to three Spoons into the Sieve, then sieve it into the Bowl. Each levelled Uchi Spoon holds about one gram, so use two for a lighter bowl and three for something fuller. Sieving is the step newcomers skip and later regret. It breaks the fine clumps that otherwise float and won’t dissolve.

   Keep the Pod sealed in the Base. Matcha quality fades quickly once it meets air, light and heat.

3. Water temperature for matcha

   Matcha wants water at 70 to 80°C, never boiling. There is chemistry behind the number. Matcha is rich in L-theanine, the amino acid behind its calm, focused energy, and boiling water destroys it, leaving only the catechins that taste bitter. That bitterness sharpens above 80°C. The bright green colour comes from chlorophyll, which begins to break down in hotter water. Keep within range and you hold on to the flavour, the colour and the calm.

   You do not need a thermometer. Water off the boil sits at 100°C and loses roughly 10°C each time you pour it between two cups, and around 10°C a minute as it stands. Two unhurried pours, or three minutes’ wait, brings it into range.

   Pour about 30ml over the matcha, roughly a shot glass, and whisk to a smooth, dark paste. Loosen it with a little more water, to the consistency of an espresso shot. Working to a paste first draws a finer foam and dissolves every last grain of powder.

4. How to whisk matcha

   Keep the Bowl still with one hand and whisk with the other, from the wrist, in a light W or M shape. This is whisking, not stirring. The shape is what draws in the air. Start near the bottom and work slowly up towards the surface, easing off as you rise, so the larger bubbles break and a fine microfoam forms. Lift the Whisk up through the middle to settle it.

   Fine foam takes practice. It comes more easily each time.

5. Finishing the bowl

   Add 120ml of milk, hot or cold. Treat it as you would an iced latte or a cappuccino. Whisk the matcha with water first, always, because poured straight into cold milk it clumps. For a little sweetness, add honey, maple syrup or two grams of sugar, dissolved into the matcha first if the milk is cold.

   The measures are deliberate. 30ml of water to 120ml of milk, a small cup by design. More milk only buries the flavour the leaf is grown for.

   In Japan, matcha is traditionally drunk without milk at all, whisked with hot water alone and served in a small bowl. Made thin this way, it is called usucha. Milk came later. For a plain bowl, top the paste with hot water instead.

   Matcha can also be made with cold water in place of hot. It draws out different flavours and less foam, and is worth exploring once you are more practised. More on cold versus hot whisking.