Matcha is one of the most consumed teas worldwide. People love the bold and rich taste of matcha tea.
Matcha is also one of the most expensive teas in the world as compared to other types of green tea or coffee.
So, matcha fans want to know, why is matcha so expensive? Because producing high-quality matcha is a tedious and laborious process with a high skill set.
You might be one of those matcha fans who curiously want to know the secret of, why is matcha so expensive?
So, let’s get into it and find out the reason behind the expensiveness of matcha.
Why Is Matcha So Expensive
The growing and harvesting process of matcha is very time-consuming, expensive, and required a lot of knowledge with a special skill set. Highly efficient and knowledgeable labor is required to produce high-quality matcha.
Just to produce 30g matcha powder, 3 hours of rigorous efforts are required.
Here are the factors due to which matcha is expensive:
- First harvest
- Extra men power to shade the plants
- Hand plucking process
- Stems and veins removal
- Stone grinding: slow and difficult process
- Limited quantity
5 Reasons Why Is Matcha So Expensive
As we listed some factors which are responsible for the high rates of matcha. Let’s discuss some of the main reasons behind the expensiveness of matcha.
1) The Cultivation: –
Unlike the other types of green tea, matcha is stone ground and grown under the shades or bamboo. Also, high-quality matcha grows only in the specific regions of Japan. Furthermore, it requires specific timing of shading.
2) The Harvest: –
You need to notice that matcha is hand-harvested. Also, matcha can be harvested 1 – 2 months per year from May to June.
After the harvest process, when preparing for the tea leaves the farmers carefully de-stemmed and de-veined every single leaf. Which is time taking process. Also, it requires a lot of effort, skills, and patience to produce the best quality matcha.
3) The preparation: –
The preparation of matcha tea is required a specific skill set. It’s not the same as the other type of teas. If the level of harvested leaves of matcha is not up to the mark, then you will feel the bitterness in taste.
4) The Processing: –
The processing of matcha is one of the toughest things in the whole process of producing matcha powder. It takes 3 hours to produce 30g matcha powder when grinding with stones.
If you grinding in mills then it may take up to 1 hour to produce 40g of matcha powder. Because matcha can only grind in the small batches. In small batches, it is easy to protect the leaves from overheating or uneven grinding. Which may cause nutrient loss.
The grinding speed of matcha plays a vital role in the taste and color of matcha powder. Slower the grinding, more the bold and rich taste. Also, slow grinding keeps its color fresh green.
5) The Demand: –
Matcha has a huge number of followers, who love to drink matcha at any cost. Nowadays, the demand increased drastically. Because matcha contains anti-oxidants and catechins which are beneficial for mental and physical health.
Back in the time, matcha was just used in tea ceremonies only in Japan, but now you can find matcha on the menu of every coffee shop or restaurant. That’s the major reason behind the high price of matcha.
How Much Does Matcha Green Tea Cost?
Normally, you can get premium-quality matcha by paying $0.75 – $1 per gram. Also, for the culinary matcha, you have to pay $0.25 – $0.50 per gram.
However, you can get low-quality matcha at cheaper rates. But the lo quality matcha has a bitter taste and dull color. You won’t like that at all.
As we compare the rate of matcha tea per gram with other tea types than matcha is expensive. But we just use 1 gram of matcha powder per serving. So yeah, it’s effective.
Is Matcha Tea Worth It?
Matcha contains 137 times more antioxidants than any other type of green tea. Also, matcha is fully packed with catechins, amino acids, and vitamins, which may fight against dangerous diseases such as cancer, heart attack, stroke, liver and kidney diseases, etc.
Matcha tea is also very beneficial in weight loss. So, with such mental and health benefits, I would say Yes! Matcha is worth it.
Conclusion: –
So, matcha is expensive just because of the extensive work and skillful labor required to produce premium quality matcha. Also, matcha has numerous mental and health benefits. Which are far more than any other type of green tea.
Somehow matcha worth the price. Also, we just need 1-gram matcha powder per serving. So, for me, it’s not expensive, because its benefits and taste worth more than that. I would love to enjoy the richness and boldness of matcha.
