Matcha Buying Guide
How to Choose the Best Matcha to Buy from Japan
Most “best matcha brand in Japan” lists rank tins by reputation. A better way to choose is to read what the tin actually tells you: which cultivar it is, which harvest it came from, where it was grown, and how it was milled. Those four facts explain most of the difference in color, aroma, texture and price — and they are the same facts a tea buyer in Kyoto looks at first.
This guide shows you how to read a matcha label, compares every matcha we sell side by side with its price per gram, tells you which one to buy for koicha, usucha or lattes, and explains what Uji matcha costs and why. If you buy for a café, shop or brand, the last section covers buying direct from a Japanese supplier.
Quick answer: For thick koicha, choose a hand-picked first-harvest Uji matcha — in our range, that means Asahi or Gokō × Samidori. For a daily bowl of usucha, a single-cultivar first-harvest tea such as Okumidori or Saemidori. For lattes, a well-built blend like our Organic Classic Blend or the 250 g café pouch. Whatever you buy, look for a named cultivar, a stated harvest and a stated origin.
Decode the tin
How to Read a Matcha Label
The front of a tin is mostly branding. The useful information is in five lines that a good supplier will always state — and a vague one will leave out.
Grade. “Ceremonial,” “premium” and “culinary” are not legally defined in Japan. They tell you what the seller intends the tea for — drinking straight, lattes, or cooking — so read them alongside the other four lines, never instead of them. Our ceremonial vs. culinary guide goes deeper.
Cultivar. The tea variety. Yabukita is Japan’s benchmark cultivar, clean and dependable. Saemidori is bright and naturally sweet, Okumidori balanced and rounded, Gokō rich and umami-forward, and Asahi — rare and low-yielding — the most refined. “Single-cultivar” means one variety; a blend will usually name its parts. See the matcha cultivars guide.
Harvest. First spring harvest (ichibancha) leaves carry the most amino acids, including L-theanine, which is where much of matcha’s sweetness and umami comes from. Many good everyday matcha blend first and second spring flushes for a fuller body. A label that names the harvest is telling you something; one that does not is usually blending later picks.
Origin. “Product of Japan” is a start. Better is a prefecture (Kyoto, Shizuoka, Kagoshima) and better still a district — Wazuka, Kakegawa, northern Uji. Uji is the historic home of matcha, but excellent matcha is grown across Japan; what matters is that the origin is stated plainly.
Milling. Matcha is tencha leaf ground to a powder, and the method changes the texture. Traditional granite stone mills are slow — on our Gokō × Samidori page we note about 40 grams an hour — and are kept cool to protect color and aroma. Other methods can also produce a fine, even powder. Look for a label that says how the tea was milled, and treat “stone-milled” as a claim about that one tea, not about a brand or a region.
Certification and freshness. “JAS organic” means certified under Japan’s organic standard, which covers cultivation and processing. A best-before date, a sealed tin or foil pouch, and a supplier who can tell you when the tea was milled are all good signs. Once open, use matcha within one to two months — our matcha shelf life guide explains why.
Side by side
Our Uji and Japanese Matcha, Compared
Our retail matcha comes from Uji, Kyoto and select regions of Japan. Here is every one of them, with the facts from its product page and the price per gram, so you can compare a 30 g tin with a 250 g pouch on equal terms.
On a phone, swipe the table sideways to see every column.
| Matcha | Cultivar(s) | Region | Harvest | Milling | Best for | Size | Price | ¥/g |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Uji Matcha Asahi — Hand-Picked Single-Cultivar Ceremonial | Asahi | Uji, Kyoto | First spring flush, hand-picked; matured until autumn before milling | Stone-milled in Japan | Koicha, usucha | 30 g | ¥8,000 | ¥267 |
| Uji Matcha Gokō × Samidori — Hand-Picked Ceremonial Blend | Gokō, Samidori | Northern Uji, Kyoto | First spring flush, hand-picked | Stone-milled in Japan | Koicha, usucha, premium lattes | 30 g | ¥6,200 | ¥207 |
| JAS Organic Uji Matcha — Single-Cultivar Okumidori | Okumidori | Wazuka, Kyoto | First spring harvest | Stone-milled in Japan | Usucha, lattes | 30 g | ¥5,700 | ¥190 |
| JAS Organic Uji Matcha — Single-Cultivar Saemidori | Saemidori | Wazuka, Kyoto | First spring harvest | Stone-milled in Japan | Usucha, lattes | 30 g | ¥5,500 | ¥183 |
| Ceremonial Grade Uji Matcha — First Spring Harvest | Yabukita | Uji, Kyoto | First spring harvest | Stone-milled in Japan | Usucha, lattes | 100 g | ¥7,000 | ¥70 |
| Organic Uji Matcha — Ceremonial Grade Classic Blend | Yabukita, Saemidori | Uji, Kyoto | First and second spring harvest | Stone-milled in Japan | Usucha, lattes | 50 g | ¥3,980 | ¥80 |
| Organic Japanese Matcha Shizuoka — Single Farm | Saemidori, Samidori | Kakegawa, Shizuoka | First and second flush, May | Milled in Japan | Usucha, lattes, desserts | 50 g | ¥3,480 | ¥70 |
| Organic Uji Matcha for Café — Ceremonial Blend | Yabukita, Saemidori | Uji, Kyoto | Primarily first spring harvest, with a smaller second-flush share | Stone-milled in Japan | Usucha, lattes, café drinks | 250 g | ¥15,500 | ¥62 |
Prices are our shop prices in Japanese yen. Outside Japan, the product page shows the price in your local currency. Okumidori, Saemidori, the Classic Blend, the Shizuoka matcha and the café pouch are JAS certified organic. The Shizuoka matcha is milled with a patented pulverizing method that keeps the particle size fine and even.
What the powder looks like
Color is the quickest honest signal in matcha: vivid, lively green from fresh, shaded leaf; dull or yellowish green from older or later-harvest leaf. These swatches were photographed under the same light, so the colors compare fairly.
Match it to the bowl
Which Matcha to Buy for Koicha, Usucha and Lattes
There is no single best matcha to buy in Japan or anywhere else — there is the right matcha for the way you drink it. Start from the preparation and the choice gets simple.
Koicha (thick tea)
Koicha uses much more powder and far less water, whisked slowly into a glossy paste. It magnifies everything, so it needs hand-picked, first-harvest leaf with deep, calm umami.
Choose Asahi — the form that shows its depth best — or Gokō × Samidori. These are the only two in our range we recommend for koicha.
Usucha (thin tea)
The everyday whisked bowl: 1–2 g of matcha and 60–70 ml of water at around 75–80°C. Here a single cultivar lets you taste one variety’s personality.
Okumidori for balance and depth, Saemidori for brightness and sweetness, or the First Spring Harvest 100 g if you drink a bowl every day. New to whisking? See how to make matcha tea.
Lattes and iced drinks
Milk softens matcha, so a latte wants a tea with body and color that carries through. A blend built for it beats a delicate single cultivar here.
The Organic Classic Blend and the 250 g café pouch are made for milk; the Organic Shizuoka also holds up well in lattes and desserts. Asahi is wasted in milk — save it for the bowl. Recipes in our matcha latte guide.
Many daily drinkers keep two tins: a blend for lattes and a single cultivar for a quiet bowl of usucha. If organic certification matters to you, five of our eight are JAS certified organic.
Value
Uji Matcha Prices: What to Expect to Pay, and Why
Uji matcha price tracks the work behind the leaf. Price per gram is the only fair way to compare — a 250 g café pouch and a 30 g ceremonial tin are different purchases — and within our own range the hand-picked teas cost roughly three to four times as much per gram as the café pouch. Five things account for nearly all of that gap:
- Hand-picking. Almost all matcha today is machine-harvested. Hand-picked tencha is a small fraction of Japanese production, and only the youngest shoots are taken.
- Harvest. First spring harvest leaf is the most prized; blends that add a second flush cost less and gain body.
- Cultivar. Asahi is under 0.3% of Japan’s matcha and difficult to grow, so a single-cultivar Asahi will always sit at the top of a price list.
- Milling. A granite stone mill turns out about 40 grams an hour. That is slow, and the tea pays for it.
- Organic certification. Growing without synthetic pesticides or fertilizers relies on soil health, shading and patience, and yields less.
Why matcha prices in Japan rose
Matcha prices in Japan rose sharply in 2025. In Kyoto Prefecture, hand-picked Uji tencha output fell from 10,216 kg in 2024 to 6,140 kg in 2025, and the auction price of Uji tencha rose from ¥20,024 to ¥43,330 per kilogram; first-harvest machine-picked tencha rose from ¥5,402 to ¥14,541 per kilogram. Those figures come from Kyoto Prefecture tea statistics and Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and we explain them in our report on the matcha shortage. Tencha is the raw leaf before milling, so every retail price sits on top of it.
The practical lesson: be wary of “ceremonial Uji matcha” priced like culinary powder. When the raw leaf costs what it does, a very cheap tin is usually missing a cultivar, a harvest or an origin on its label — which brings you back to the first section of this guide.
Where to buy
Buying Matcha in Japan vs. Buying Direct from a Japanese Supplier
If you are visiting, buying matcha powder in Japan is a pleasure: tea shops in Uji and Kyoto, department-store food halls and specialist tea houses will let you see and often taste the tea before you buy. Bring the label checklist above, ask when the tea was milled, and buy only what you will finish within a couple of months of opening — matcha does not improve in a suitcase.
From home, the most reliable route is a supplier based in Japan that names its cultivars, harvests and regions. We are based in Osaka, and retail orders ship from our warehouses in Japan, Australia, the USA and Austria. Browse our Uji and Japanese matcha.
Buying for a café, shop or brand?
Business buyers do better going direct by the kilogram. Our wholesale price list carries more than 50 teas with their price per kilogram in Japanese yen, and most grades start at 1 kg. You can order samples first and judge color, aroma and taste in your own kitchen before you commit.
Good to know
Matcha Buying FAQs
What is the best matcha brand in Japan?
The best Japanese matcha brands have one thing in common: they tell you the cultivar, the harvest, the origin and the milling for each tea. Judge a brand by how specific its labels are, then choose the tea that fits how you drink — koicha, usucha or lattes.
Where can I buy matcha powder in Japan?
Tea shops in Uji and Kyoto, specialist tea houses and department-store food halls all sell matcha, and many let you taste first. Outside Japan, buy from a Japan-based supplier that states cultivar, harvest and origin on every tin.
How much does Uji matcha cost?
It depends on harvest, cultivar and whether the leaf was hand-picked. Compare by price per gram: in our range, the hand-picked koicha teas cost roughly three to four times as much per gram as our 250 g café pouch. The table above lists each one.
Is Uji matcha better than other Japanese matcha?
Uji is matcha’s historic home and a benchmark for quality, but fine matcha is grown elsewhere in Japan too — our organic Shizuoka matcha is one example. A clearly stated origin matters more than any single place name. See what is Uji matcha.
Which matcha should I buy for koicha?
Only a hand-picked, first-harvest matcha with deep umami. In our range, that is Asahi or Gokō × Samidori. Everything else we sell is made for usucha and lattes.
Is organic matcha worth it?
If certification matters to you, yes — JAS organic covers both cultivation and processing. Flavor depends more on harvest, cultivar and milling than on certification, and excellent matcha exists both ways.